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Author Fairlie, Henry, 1924-1990, author.

Title Bite the hand that feeds you : essays and provocations / Henry Fairlie ; edited and with an introduction by Jeremy McCarter ; foreword by Leon Wieseltier
Published New Haven : Yale University Press, [2009]
©2009

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Description 1 online resource (xi, 355 pages)
Contents A genius for conflict: the life of British politics. Sketches of MPs -- The BBC attitude to politics -- In defense of ordinariness -- On the comforts of anger -- Evolution of a term: The establishment -- Chips of memory -- A volcanic flash: Winston Churchill -- The last, best hope for mankind: American space and time. A cheer for American imperialism -- In defense of big government -- Let the convention be "a brawl" -- The importance of bathtubs: Fairlie at large -- Mencken's Booboisie in control of GOP: Fairlie at large -- The voice of hope: Franklin D. Roosevelt -- My America! -- If Pooh were president: a Tory's riposte to Reaganism -- Migration: Washington diarist -- Citizen Kennedy -- The idiocy of urban life -- Merry faxmas: Washington diarist -- Greedy geezers -- Brief whining moments: The collapse of oratory -- Pen ultimate -- Spurious George -- Perrier on the rocks -- An evening with Hooter -- The harlot's prerogative: Writers and the press. Necessary weapons -- Press against politics -- Magnates, mischief, and mass circulation -- How journalists get rich -- A radical and a patriot: Randolph Bourne -- Tory days: George F. Will -- When challenger fell from the sky
Summary Henry Fairlie was one of the most colorful and trenchant journalists of the twentieth century. The British-born writer made his name on Fleet Street, where he coined the term "The Establishment," sparred in print with the likes of Kenneth Tynan, and caroused with Kingsley Amis, among many others. In America his writing found a home in the pages of the New Yorker and other top magazines and newspapers. When he died, he was remembered as "quite simply the best political journalist, writing in English, in the last fifty years."Remarkable for their prescience and relevance, Fairlie's essays celebrate Winston Churchill, old-fashioned bathtubs, and American empire; they ridicule Republicans who think they are conservatives and yuppies who want to live forever. Fairlie is caustic, controversial, and unwavering--especially when attacking his employers. With an introduction by Jeremy McCarter, Bite the Hand That Feeds You restores a compelling voice that, among its many virtues, helps Americans appreciate their country anew
Notes "A New republic book."
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Print version record
Subject LITERARY COLLECTIONS -- Essays.
POLITICAL SCIENCE -- Essays.
Politics and government
SUBJECT United States -- Politics and government -- 20th century. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85140455
Subject United States
Form Electronic book
Author McCarter, Jeremy, 1976- editor.
Wieseltier, Leon, writer of foreword.
ISBN 9780300155525
0300155522
9781282437555
1282437550