User:SoundFlyer/sandbox
Career
In 1951 Sampson went to Johannesburg, South Africa, to become editor of the magazine Drum, remaining there for four years.[1] After his return to the United Kingdom he joined the editorial staff of The Observer, where he worked from 1955 to 1966.
He was the author of a series of major books, starting with Anatomy of Britain (1962) and ending with Who Runs This Place?: The Anatomy of Britain in the 21st Century in 2004. He was known as 'the man who knew everybody'. For a generation, he developed a network of friends from amongst the rich and powerful. He explored the workings and distribution of political power in Britain. He dissected the body politic, parliament, the Civil Service, and other major social institutions, in particular the large corporation. He took an interest in broad political and economic power structures, but he also saw power as personal. The end result was his 'Anatomy' of the nation, always centred on people, answering better than most Lenin's famous question 'Who? Whom?'. He occasionally offered psychoanalytical interpretations of power players, as in this passages from The Money Lenders:
"[Bankers] seem specially conscious of time, always aware that time is money. There is always a sense of restraint and tension. (Is it part of the connection which Freud observed between compulsive neatness, anal eroticism and interest in money?)"
Sampson was a personal friend of Nelson Mandela before Mandela became politically active. In 1964 Sampson attended the Rivonia Trial in support of Mandela and other ANC leaders, and in 1999 he published the authorised biography of Mandela.[2]
Sampson was also a founding member of the now defunct Social Democratic Party (SDP).[1]
Sampson's personal archive, catalogued by the Bodleian Library, was made public for the first time in 2012.[3]