From 1948 to 1975, David Astor transformed Britain’s oldest paper into a vibrant, intelligent weekly renowned for its progressive campaigns and the quality of its writing. The author of a new biography recalls some of Astor’s achievements• Click here to read an extract on Astor’s lifelong interest in psychoanalysisDavid Astor was in his mid-30s and recently demobbed when, in 1945, he began to work full time on his family newspaper. Although he had long been the heir-apparent, his father, Waldorf Astor, felt that he needed more experience before becoming the editor of the Observer: he was made the foreign editor, while Ivor Brown, an old-fashioned man of letters, given to writing books about cricket and the theatre, held the fort as acting editor.Cyril Dunn, later to report for the paper from India and South Africa, joined the Observer in 1947 and quickly realised that “David Astor was in total control of what was going on and Ivor Brown was making no attempt to disguise his figurehead status” and that “what I witnessed were the birth pangs of an Observer sensationally different from anything in its own past and a paper unique and wonderful in western journalism as a whole”. Astor was singlemindedly converting a conservative, rather frowsty newspaper into a non-party paper of the centre-left, famed for the quality of its writers: it would combine support for the postwar welfare state with a belief in free enterprise and the mixed economy, anti-communism and Atlanticism... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2016-02-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
From 1948 to 1975, David Astor transformed Britain’s oldest paper into a vibrant, intelligent weekly renowned for its progressive campaigns and the quality of its writing. The author of a new biography recalls some of Astor’s achievements• Click here to read an extract on Astor’s lifelong... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2016-02-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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'1984' book sales are rising after the Edward Snowden revelations about NSA spying. The topic of 'Big Brother' watching has spurred the sales of George Orwell's "1984" and Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World." Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2013-06-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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