Liberty, Equality, and Humbug

Helena Kennedy, QC Orwell deserved a brilliant book on him and here it is. By far the most irresistible, searching, and graceful account of our iconic writer and political thinker. A triumph of modern scholarship.

Philip Pettit, Princeton University and Australian National University A vivid and valuable reconstruction of Orwell's political thinking. It shines a bright light on his somewhat unsteady service to somewhat unstable ideals. But it still kindles affection for the man.

David Bromwich, Yale University David Dwan admires Orwell this side of idolatry, and interprets him against a background generous enough to include Adorno and Hayek, Marx and Bentham, Auden and Huxley. The result is a subtle, cogent, and wonderfully well-informed study, most unusual in its treatment of the place of equality in Orwell's thinking and the connection between the practice of freedom and respect for truth.

Shami Chakrabarti David Dwan has written a thoughtful and complex book about a thoughtful and complex man who too many think they know too well. In a polarized moment when so much comment veers between hagiography and hate, Liberty, Equality, and Humbug reminds us of a great writer's contradictions and inspires reflection on our own.

Robert Colls, Literary Review An excellent book, beautifully crafted, smart and bold.

Andrew Palmer, Times Higher Education A powerful study of Orwell's thought and intellectual shape-shifting.

Gordon Parsons, Morning Star The figure who emerges from Dwan's interesting book reveals a man who strangely never seemed to trust himself.

P Stansky, CHOICE [A] perceptive study of George Orwell... Almost 70 years after his death, Orwell's two most important fictions, Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, are more relevant than ever... This study allows us to understand him better.

David Dwan is Associate Professor at Hertford College, Oxford. Prior to joining Hertford he held lectureships at Queen Mary, University of London, Queen's University, Belfast, and the University of York. His research addresses the relationship between literature and intellectual history, particularly moral and political philosophy, from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century. He has an interest in Irish writing and his first book The Great Community (Field Day, 2008) examined the evolution of cultural nationalism in Ireland. He co-edited (with Christopher Insole) The Cambridge Companion to Edmund Burke and has published articles on a variety of figures from Rousseau to Woolf.

Introduction 1: Liberty 2: Equality 3: Solidarity 4: Truth 5: Happiness Conclusion