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The Make Poverty History campaign has started a 20-year campaign with the highest possible ambition: to transform the world. We’ll be hearing a lot more about it for years. Bob Geldof declared Live-8 was “not the end”. Bono called it “just the start”. Actually rock politics has been a force in history from way before Live Aid, punk rock, John Lennon and Vietnam. This is the first book to take a long hard look at a new generation of rock activists. It has worldwide implications. It moves from closed-door White House machinations, to all-too-open UN politics, shadowy business lobbying and sermons on spotlit stages – contrasting to the darkest horrors of African drought.
Bono and Geldof and stars on both sides of the Atlantic have been talked of as statesmen, saviours, saints or superheroes who have raised billions of dollars and saved thousands of lives. They have won praise, a Nobel Peace Prize nomination, a knighthood and an embarrassing number of glittering prizes. They have even been talked as the most powerful men in the world: they are certainly on first-name terms with some of them.
Yet some charities have claimed that the rock stars are way out of their depth: just publicity-seeking pawns in a bigger political game. This book shows the real scale of their achievements – and how much has still to be done.
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