The radical journalist Claud Cockburn fought successfully against politics and the media, writing for various publications such as The Times and Private Eye. For Graham Greene, he was the greatest journalist of the 20th century. Born in China in 1904 and educated alongside Evelyn Waugh, Cockburn embarked on a brilliant career as a correspondent for The Times, first in Berlin, then in New York, where he met Al Capone in Chicago, and finally in Washington. He resigned in 1932 to start The Week, an anti-Nazi and anti-establishment newsletter with influence greater than its circulation. British officials were horrified by the revelations he published. These compared the political influence of the German appeasers – the Cliveden Set – within the British elite and the previously suppressed news about the abdication of Edward VIII.

Cockburn wrote dispatches while fighting in the Spanish Civil War. In Spain, he assisted W. H. Auden and came into conflict with George Orwell. Claud's private life was also full of events. He was married three times, one of whom was Jean Ross, the model for Sally Bowles in Christopher Isherwood's work. Patrick Cockburn, himself an international journalist, records his father Claud's lifelong dedication to a guerrilla struggle against the powerful on behalf of the weak. This is a biography that is timely in today's age, where journalism is often suppressed, overshadowed, undervalued, and corrupted.

Pages: 320, Year of Publication: 0204, Dimensions: 15.3x15.3cm