Hubris: The Road to Donald Trump, Power, Populism, Narcissism with David Owen

In Hubris: The Road to Donald Trump, Power, Populism, Narcissism David Owen analyses and describes the mental and physical condition of political leaders past and present with a particular view that what went before paved the way to President Trump.

Of recent leaders there have been depressives, alcoholics, narcissists, populists and those affected by hubris syndrome and driven by their religious beliefs, as in Bush and Blair. But Donald Trump, a world-class narcissist, presents a completely different set of issues. This book is the first to place him in his historical, political, philosophical and medical context.

It is appropriate that it should come from someone uniquely qualified to do so. A writer on Military Conversations of 1906-14, the War Cabinet in 1940 and UK foreign policy post Brexit. David Owen was British Foreign Secretary 1977-79 and EU peace negotiator in the Balkans 1992-95. Also he has served on the board of several large international companies with interests in Russia, the US and the UK. As a former neuroscientist he has written extensively on hubris syndrome in journals like Brain and in 2008 in his classic book, In Sickness and In Power, still in print in a revised edition from 2016.

Part of an exciting series of talks and events which coincide with the exhibition ‘Freud, Dali and the Metamorphosis of Narcissus’, on display until 24 February 2019.