Lend Me Your Ears: Oxford Dictionary of Political Quotations

Caligula, William Shakespeare, Crazy Horse, and 1,500 other commentators from ancient Greek philosophers to Sarah Palin trade remarks profound, caustic, trenchant, and humorous in this entertaining omnibus. Lend Me Your Ears has a British tinge, but American pols are well represented. Middle and Far Eastern sources are sparsely included. Jay, coauthor of the BBC radio and television series Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister, presents an eclectic assortment of bons mots alphabetically by author. Featuring some 300 quotations new to this edition, the book has an excellent keyword index. Jay's voracious pursuit of sources and discretion in selection are the linchpins that make this a valuable source. He notes in the introduction that "the number of new entries from earlier years is as large as ever, if not larger." Funeral orations, epitaphs, songs, cartoon captions, and slogans ("Burn, baby, burn") contribute to the hodgepodge. Both the pious (including Pius XII) and the rebarbative (Joseph McCarthy) have their say. Competing dictionaries of political maxims are largely nonexistent today. Some are attuned to American affairs, such as Wolfgang Mieder's Proverbs Are the Best Policy: Folk Wisdom and American Politics (2005). Other dictionaries compile the sayings of presidents, including Barack Obama in His Own Words (2007), edited by Lisa Rogak. Jay is especially adept at selecting scathing ripostes by both obscure and well-known British politicians, including Winston Churchill's comment on Stanley Baldwin: "The candle in that great turnip has gone out." Lend Me Your Ears invites readers to eavesdrop on Mark Twain, Sting, and Aeschylus. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All libraries; all levels. General Readers; Lower-division Undergraduates; Upper-division Undergraduates; Graduate Students; Researchers/Faculty; Two-year Technical Program Students; Professionals/Practitioners. Reviewed by C. B. Thurston.