Politics and the English Language

This is a new book. Condition: Brand New.

George Orwell's essay examines the power of language to shape political ideas. It is about the importance of writing concisely, clearly and precisely and the dangers to our ability to think when language, especially political language, is obscured by vague, cliched phrases and hackneyed metaphors. In it, he argues that when political discourse trades clarity and precision for stock phrases, the debasement of politics follows.

First published in Horizon in 1946, Orwell's essay was soon recognised as an important text, circulated by newspaper editors to their journalists and reprinted in magazines and anthologies of contemporary writing. It continues to be relevant to our own age.

'To read a speech by a contemporary politician, an article in a broadsheet newspaper or a communication from a government department is to be plunged straightaway into a landscape where the euphemisms, wool-pulling and downright duplicity that Orwell complained about back in 1946 are all going strong.' - D.J. Taylor

Book details and technical specifications

Format: Hardback
ISBN13: 9781851246021
Published: September 2022

Number of pages: 64
Width: 114 mm
Height: 184 mm
Depth: not specified

Publisher: Bodleian Library