This collection of obituaries tells the life stories of two hundred of the world's most captivating people as judged by writers Ann Wroe and Keith Colquhoun and as published in The Economist from 1994 to 2008.
Each stylishly written story and accompanying photograph surprises, entertains, and stimulates. The titled, wealthy, and powerful are here, of course, including Diana, Princess of Wales, Gerald Ford, Bob Hope, John Paul II, Norman Mailer, Mstislav Rostropovich, and General William Westmoreland, but so are others: a cookery teacher and spy, the inventor of instant noodles, a self-proclaimed gypsy king, a musical psychic, an American gangster, a patriotic crook, a philosopher of consumerism, a master of tabloid journalism, a protector of minorities, a veteran of Gallipoli, the greatest of second bananas, and so on.
This book is as entertaining as it is edifying; it's a great gift for biography, history, and popular-culture fans, as well as for everyone who turns first to the obituary pages in the daily newspaper. As Clarence Darrow (1857-1938) put it: "I never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with a lot of pleasure."
Introduction.
The Obituaries.
Red Adair.
Alex the African Grey.
Momofuku Ando.
Brooke Astor and Leona Helmsley.
Oscar Auerbach.
Digby Baltzell.
Sirimavo Bandaranaike.
Christiaan Barnard.
Doak Barnett.
Syd Barrett.
Jean Baudrillard.
Saul Belllow.
Ingmar Bergman.
Bip.
Vere Bird.
Jean Bédel Bokassa.
Joseph Bonanno.
Habib Bourguiba.
Donald Bradman.
Robert Brooks and Mickey Spillane.
Rosemary Brown.
John Cairncross.
Jeanne Calment.
Alec Campbell.
Marcel Carné.
Barbara Cartland.
Bonnie Cashin.
Charles Causley.
Régine Cavagnoud.
Eddie Chapman.
Eugenia Charles.
Ray Charles.
Julia Child.
Ion Cioaba.
Eddie Clontz.
Christopher Cockerell.
The Columbia Seven.
Charles Conrad.
Alistair Cooke.
Maurice Couve de Murville.
George Dawson.
Magda Denes.
Jacques Derrida.
The Duke of Devonshire.
Diana, Princess of Wales.
Manuel Elizalde.
Juan Fangio.
Joey Faye.
Thomas Ferebee.
Ibrahim Ferrer.
Virginia Fiennes.
Bobby Fischer.
Paul Foot.
Gerald Ford.
Antonio Fortich.
Janet Frame.
Betty Friedan.
Imre Friedmann.
Takeo Fukuda.
John Kenneth Galbraith.
Allen Ginsberg.
Françoise Giroud.
Elizabeth Gordon.
Robert Graham.
Paolo Gucci.
Thom Gunn.
Kenneth Hale.
Lionel Hampton.
Pamela Harriman.
George Harrison.
John Harsanyi.
Sir Joshua Hassan.
Edward Heath.
Freddy Heineken.
Ernest Hendon.
María Julia Hernández.
Charlton Heston.
Thor Heyerdahl.
Albert Hofmann.
Bob Hope.
Ulrich Inderbinen.
Steve Irwin.
Junius Jayewardene.
Roy Jenkins.
Elrey Jeppesen.
John Paul II.
Lady Bird Johnson.
Yousuf Karsh.
Genichi Kawakami.
Noel Keane.
Karl Kehrle.
Stanley Kubrick.
Konrad Kujau.
Stanley Kunitz.
Akira Kurosawa.
Freddie Laker.
Alice Lakwena.
Hedy Lamarr.
Morris Lapidus.
Alan de Lastic.
Estée Lauder.
Frank Launder.
Laurie Lee.
James Lees-Milne.
Roy Lichtenstein.
Walter Lini.
Joan Littlewood.
Christopher Lloyd.
Ronald Lockley.
Bernard Loiseau.
Cardinal Lustiger.
Lillian Lux.
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
Norman Mailer.
Tommy Makem.
Michael Manley.
Esther Manz.
Stanley Marcus.
Princess Margaret.
Marie-José.
Albert Marshall.
Benito Martínez.
Eugene McCarthy.
Malcolm McLean.
George Melly.
Erich Mielke.
Arthur Miller.
Théodore Monod.
Akio Morita.
Kathryn Murray.
Kiharu Nakamura.
Eric Newby.
Stavros Niarchos.
Duke of Norfolk.
Patrick O’Brian.
Sir Mark Oliphant.
Harry Oppenheimer.
Henri d’Orléans.
Maureen O’Sullivan.
David Packard.
Kerry Packer.
Maurice Papon.
Rosa Parks.
Luciano Pavarotti.
John Peel Alejo.
Peralta Max Perutz.
Pham Van Dong.
Abbé Pierre.
Gene Pitney.
George Plimpton.
Anna Politkovskaya.
Lazare Ponticelli.
Anthony Powell.
Kukrit Pramoj.
Rama Rao.
Allen Read..
Robert Rich.
Bobby Riggs.
Amalia Rodrigues.
Andres Rodriguez.
Brother Roger Mstislav.
Rostropovich.
Miriam Rothschild.
Tiny Rowland.
Herbert Simon.
Frank Sinatra.
Anna Nicole Smith.
Marie Smith.
Reg Smythe.
Helen Snow.
Muriel Spark.
Stephen Spender.
Dr Spock.
Irving Stevens.
Chidambaram Subramaniam.
Sue Sumii.
Sun Yaoting.
Robert Taylor René Thom.
Graham Thomas.
Hunter S. Thompson.
Leonard Tose.
Gilbert Trigano.
Pierre Trudeau.
Galina Ulanova.
Chiyo Uno.
Leo Valiani.
Cyrus Vance.
Veerappan.
Rosemary Verey.
Elizabeth Vining.
Kurt Waldheim.
Wang Li.
Lancelot Ware.
Pierre Werner.
General William Westmoreland.
Elsie Widdowson.
Markus Wolf.
Joseph Wolfson.
Shoichi Yokoi.
Yasser Talal al-Zahrani.
Overview
This collection of obituaries tells the life stories of two hundred of the world's most captivating people as judged by writers Ann Wroe and Keith Colquhoun and as published in The Economist from 1994 to 2008.
Each stylishly written story and accompanying photograph surprises, entertains, and stimulates. The titled, wealthy, and powerful are here, of course, including Diana, Princess of Wales, Gerald Ford, Bob Hope, John Paul II, Norman Mailer, Mstislav Rostropovich, and General...