Political advice has never seemed more prominent - or more problematic. This volume of essays speaks to a contemporary concern, set in a wider historical context. Political Advice: Past, Present and Future brings several very different voices to bear on the problem of advice and influence, the distinction in so far as it is valid between political and policy advice, the two-way parasitism of adviser and advised, the nature and idioms of political advice literature, the ever-pressing issue of access and exclusion, and the curious history of advisers' success and failure. With contributions from classics and literature as well as from history and politics, this volume treats political advice in an interdisciplinary fashion. Moreover, a unique practitioners' perspective on the problem of political advice is provided by the contributions of politicians, political advisers and former senior civil servants. Appreciated and despised in equal measure, political advisers have been at the heart of government decision-making for many centuries. This valuable collection of essays digs deep into the history and more recent practice of political advice to expose why these advisers, while sometimes controversial, have been so valued by generation after generation of our political leaders.