{"product_id":"expense-of-glory-book-ian-mcintyre-9780006383512","title":"The Expense of Glory","description":"A biography of John Reith who founded and, for its first 14 years, directed the BBC, imbuing it with that Reithian ethos on which arguably it still runs, and establishing a model for public-service broadcasting all over the world. Reith's life was one of both tragic and baroque proportions. A product of Victorian Scottish morality, he stood monumentally for a world of absolutes and standards - of accent, of self-denial, of conduct and self-instruction. He harangued applicants for posts at the BBC with the sternness of his Presbyterian upbringing; he insisted female employees resign on marriage and dismissed male employees who divorced. Yet the great love of his life was not his long-suffering wife Muriel, but a man seven years younger than himself and in old age he had a series of passionate liaisons with much younger women. He was vain, self-absorbed and authoritarian, but he struggled with disappointment, depression, frustration and the faults in his character of which he was periodically aware.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49514202530065,"sku":"GOR002705134","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51612598042897,"sku":"GOR002103524","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0006383513.jpg?v=1751194314","url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/products\/expense-of-glory-book-ian-mcintyre-9780006383512","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}