The first authorised biography to reappraise the life and legacy of writer, philosopher and Nobel Prize nominee, Edward de Bono, best known for inventing the concept of lateral thinking. The book will be launched at The House of Lords on 3 September 2024 at 7pm.

The event, sponsored by Lord Bilimoria, and in the presence of leaders in advertising, education and industry, aims to trigger debate in parliament on introducing thinking classes in schools – teaching children how to think rather than what to think. The thinking class initiative is already widespread in Singapore, China, and parts of Australia and the US, but the concept has yet to be fully realised in the UK.

Author and broadcaster Sarah Tucker, who knew de Bono for the last ten years of his life, identifies how Edward managed to inspire people to develop new ways of thinking. She reveals how his country of birth (Malta), and his parents, shaped his ideas and nurtured his passion for helping children understand the value of learning how to think. De Bono believed in the power of playful provocation, why humour should be integral to the way we teach in schools and how words limit our ability to think creatively. Critically for us today, his experiences of meeting and working with powerful people globally, led him to believe that politicians are universally the weakest thinkers.

With an introduction by Baroness Helena Kennedy, the book identifies why he was adored by advertising agencies, misunderstood by the media, mistrusted by academia, and why, even though he was widely recognised as a genius, he made and lost millions during his lifetime. He managed to dominate the world of creative thinking for over half a century before the birth of the worldwide web, yet he never received any formal recognition from the British government for his considerable services to industry and to international relations within the Commonwealth.

Including previously unseen family photos, and original interviews with the late HRH Prince Philip, Sir Tony Blair, Rory Sutherland and Peter Gabriel, as well as an insight into those who appropriated his ideas without giving him credit, 'Edward De Bono: Love Laterally' sheds light on a man who believed that if future gener-ations fail to learn how to think, humans will become easier to manipulate and ultimately forfeit the capacity to think.