Insightful take on the world and its leaders

In this wide-ranging book Michael Burleigh demonstrates a mastery of global affairs that would put most experts in any one of his chosen chapter headings to shame. Burleigh’s subject is the world as it is right now and this is written in a markedly no-frills style, short on anecdote, heavy on fact, and direct to the point of brutality.

Burleigh, a British author and historian, has never been one to suffer fools gladly, and here he laconically polishes off a procession of targets: Tony Blair is ‘a deluded idealist’, Jean-Claude Juncker ‘hopeless’, Boris Johnson ‘clownish’, while Trump’s entire family are dismissed as the ‘comedy Corleones’. He coolly dissects Vladimir Putin’s numerous errors of judgment and concludes: ‘A strategic genius Putin is not.’

He excels not just at identifying global threats but also at deflating exaggerated fears. It goes without saying that Isis is bad but it doesn’t represent an existential threat to our way of life. There are bad people in Iran, part of George W Bush’s notorious ‘axis of evil’ but there are also pragmatists and, in Burleigh’s estimation, they would make more reliable partners than the erratic Saudis.

One of the most interesting chapters focuses on China, which may be authoritarian but at least exhibits signs of competent governance.

And as Burleigh remarks, with Trump and Putin to the fore, Chinese president Xi Jinping ‘seems like the only responsible adult in the room’.

Quite brilliant.