The book recounts well enough the main episodes of his well-judged campaign to become Deng's successor: the outmanoeuvring of the Yang brothers in 1992, the ouster of another rival, the Beijing party chief, in 1995, and, perhaps the start of it all, his careful positioning in 1989 when, as far as the official record shows, he was neither for nor against the tanks.
The history also recounts well-known battles like Operation Anaconda, in eastern Afghanistan in spring 2002.
Cooper's biography is affectionate but not uncritical, and she ably meets the challenge of adding further intrigue to journeys and adventures, such as his kidnapping of a Nazi general on the island of Crete in 1944, that her subject has already recounted so well.
Furthermore, his trip to Haiti in 1943 is recounted, as well as some of the research he did to gather facts for the novel.
There's a sequence in which the extinction of the passenger pigeon is recounted as well as a discourse on the howler monkey.
Such stories, sometimes told collaboratively, had clearly become part of the common stock of group knowledge, experiences shared and recounted: F1: Well we got off at Euston Station didn't we?
As Americans who lived through the 2000 recount well know, it's possible to win the popular vote without winning the presidency, in which case the national polls and the state polls could both be vindicated.
The opinion by Judge David Hamilton of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit recounted their "well-pled allegations" that while in custody they were "physically threatened, abused, and assaulted by the anonymous U.S. officials working as guards".
The lies that had been told about him, the breaking and entering of his holiday villa, the chasing and stalking of his son by a photographer, the vilification of Back to Basics (now cross-party policy) – all were recounted with well-mannered anger.
More than anything it just comes down to imagination: what are the ingredients for this character?" Depp recounted the well-documented story that he was almost fired from the set of the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie because his outlandish performance as Jack Sparrow initially had Disney executives worried.
