Sad Little Men

Inside the secretive world that shaped Boris Johnson

Richard Beard author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Vintage Publishing

Published:7th Jul '22

Should be back in stock very soon

Sad Little Men cover

'Read this book' Alastair Campbell

'A really wonderful book' Nigella Lawson via Twitter

In 1975 Richard Beard was sent away to boarding school. So were Boris Johnson and David Cameron.


He didn't enjoy it. But the first and most important lesson was not to let that show.

A public school education has long been accepted in Britain as a preparation for leadership, but being separated from your parents at a young age is traumatic. What sort of adult does it mould? Tackling debates about privilege head-on, Sad Little Men reveals what happens when you put a succession of men from boarding schools into positions of influence, including at 10 Downing Street, and asks the question: is this really who we want in charge?

'The most important book I've read this year' Adam Rutherford

Read this book * Alastair Campbell *
Definitive and brilliantly expressed * Viv Groskop *
Dazzling in its anger and the force of its argument * Times Literary Supplement *
A sensitive and incisive analysis of the British class system...insanely readable * Tom Holland, author of Dominion *
One of the finest polemics I have ever come across... Sad Little Men has been an eye-opener * Spectator *
A sensitive and incisive analysis of the British class system has no right to be as insanely readable and enjoyable as this book manages to be * Tom Holland, author of Dominion *
Engaging and readable, powerful and cogent. A vivid portrait of the political elite exposed for the vulnerable men/ children they are * Joy Schaverien, author of Boarding School Syndrome *
If you want to understand the aura of entitlement and untouchability shrouding our governing class, look no further than Beard's witty, unsparingly sharp and deeply moving anatomy of the emotional culture of England's boarding schools * Josh Cohen *
Read this book * Alastair Campbell *
Utterly compelling, top proper stuff. I loved it to bits. The energy of it! I really felt for them (all) by the end * Ian Marchant, Author of A Hero for High Times *

ISBN: 9781529114805

Dimensions: 198mm x 130mm x 18mm

Weight: 204g

288 pages