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was run as a British colony and what happened as the handover approached. The book gives unprecedented insights into negotiating with the Chinese, about how the institutions of democracy in Hong Kong were (belatedly) strengthened and how Patten sought to ensure that a strong degree of self-government would continue after 1997.Unexpectedly, his opponents included not only the Chinese themselves, but some British businessmen and civil service mandarins upset by Patten's efforts, for whom political freedom and the rule of law in Hong Kong seemed less important than keeping on the right side of Beijing. The book concludes with an account of what has happened in Hong Kong since the handover, a powerful assessment of recent events and Patten's reflections on how to deal with China - then and now.

Most politicians write autobiographies to 'set the record straight'. This is a different sort of memoir. Following his life as a self-confessed 'wet European' from parliament to Hong Kong and beyond, Chris Patten creates a meditation on personal and political identity which, in an age of simplification, shows the complexities of both.'A defence of liberal conservatism ... If old-style centrism is to stage a comeback and reason to supplant stridency and authoritarianism, be it in west or east, the moderates can wave Patten's book on their way to their barricades' Jonathan Fenby, Financial Times'Vivid, very well-written, First Confession joins the highest tier of recent works by British politicians' Paschal Donohoe, Irish Times'Draws on his experience of four controversial institutions - the Tory party, the Vatican, the Chinese government and the BBC - to swell the tiny list of intelligent and cultured memoirs by front-line politicians' Mark Lawson, New Statesman, Books of the Year

A Financial Times Book of the Year, Chris Patten's What Next? Surviving the Twenty-First Century is a frank and witty survey of our geopolitical future. At the start of the twenty-first century, the c

A thought-provoking analysis of the relationship among the United States, Great Britain, and Europe reveals how the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall transformed the Western alliance and explains how the t

Part memoir, part remedy for the state we're in, with liberal sprinklings of common sense, Chris Patten's Not Quite the Diplomat is a frank and funny book from a very outspoken politician. After spend

Most politicians write autobiographies to 'set the record straight' and provide retrospective justification for their careers. That is not the case with this book. 'It occurred to me that to track dow