Britain’s new prime minister, Gordon Brown (left), has just landed an American book deal for Courage: Eight Portraits, as Weinstein Books picks up the U.S. rights from Bloomsbury, who published the book just before Brown, the chancellor of the exchequer in Tony Blair’s administration for the last ten years, was given the nod to move into 10 Downing Street. Weinstein will publish the book, which includes short biographies of men and women who made “brave decisions in the service of great causes” like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Aung San Suu Kyi, in May 2008.
Actually, even with the similarity in their titles, the comparison in our headline between the prime minister’s book and Profiles in Courage is a bit simplistic. For one thing, Brown has already published several books of political history; for another, there’s no reason to believe he didn’t write them all himself.