{"product_id":"orwell","title":"Orwell","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA vivid portrait of the man behind the writings. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs one  of the most  enduringly popular and controversial novelists of the last century, the 70th anniversary  of George Orwell''s death in 2020 offers an opportunity to assess his relevance today. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDespite the commonplace  view that  \u003ci\u003eAnimal Farm\u003c\/i\u003e was aimed  exclusively at  Stalinist  Russia, it was far more  broadly focused and the  similarities between aspects of the novel and Trump''s America are obvious. Not only the parallels with the current  President,  but also by  those  who feel that  his  cult of personality is a mandate  for collective nastiness. \"Doublethink\" features in \u003ci\u003eNineteen Eighty Four\u003c\/i\u003e and it is the forerunner to \"Fake News.\" \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAside from Orwell''s importance as a political theorist and novelist his life in its own right is a beguiling narrative. His family was caught between upper middle-class complacency and uncertainty, and Orwell''s time at Prep School and as a scholarship boy at Eton caused him to despise the class system that spawned him despite finding himself unable to fully detach himself from it. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHis life thereafter mirrored the history of his country; like many from his background he devoted himself to socialism as a salve to his conscience. He died at the point when Britain''s status as an Imperial and world power had waned. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAn interest in him endures, principally because it is difficult to differentiate between the man who recorded the terrible events of the depression and the Spanish Civil War as an observer and the fiction writer who used literature to predict grim possibilities and diagnose horribly endemic inclinations. No other British writer of the 20th century has blended ideas, political commentary and literary art in such a manner. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor an author whose work has been regarded as the most important in terms of the turbulent years of the mid-20th century and who eroded the boundaries between literature, journalism and political commentary, there have been relatively few attempts to present a vibrant portrait of the man behind the writings. Fifteen years (closer  to eighteen when this book appears) is a long time for the absence of a life of one of one of the best-known authors of the twentieth century.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57484406292853,"sku":"9781448217687","price":20.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781448217687.jpg?v=1786266517","url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/products\/orwell","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}