Good and Bad Power out this month in paperback

Good and Bad Power: The Ideals and Betrayals of Government, by Geoff Mulgan (Penguin, £9.99)

It is a political truism that you need to read books to be a good leader but good leaders don't have time to read. For most of his tenure as prime minister, Tony Blair had Geoff Mulgan as his head of policy, and he has certainly read a book or two. The result is this blisteringly good examination of, well, the history of government and the current state of government throughout the world. Mulgan is clearly some kind of genius who knows the answers to all the big questions: about how we govern, and are governed; how revolutions come about; what people want from their governments; about distribution of wealth; about good government being that which gets to "transcend the base realities" and succour our souls. He really should be ruling the world. But I suppose sharing his secrets, gleaned both from first-hand experience of government and from reading writers, philosophers and politicians across millennia and continents in such a brilliantly erudite way will do. Isn't it annoying, though, that there are people on the policy frontline who know all this stuff and yet still the trains don't run on time?

Reviewed by Nicola Barr, The Guardian, September 29, 2007

Read the review in The Observer.

Good and Bad Power is currently available at Penguin Books