Philip Delves Broughton chucked in a career as a journalist more than four years ago to go to Harvard Business School. He was in his early thirties and had already been both the New York and the Paris correspondent of the Daily Telegraph. In the first of those posts he had covered the horrors of 9/11, an experience that not only deepened his perspective on life but also helped develop the somewhat detached, understated style which is used to such effect in this book. Like many journalists, Delves Broughton wanted to be his own master. He was fed up with being at the mercy of his editor, of his foreign desk and of events. To do this he had to make money. And he convinced himself that the task of doing that would be helped by an MBA from Harvard, where the Business School celebrates its centenary this year. 

This is not a commemorative tome, however. Delves Broughton took out huge loans to fund himself through Harvard – by the end of the two-year course he and his wife had two children to bring up as well – and writes with honesty and good humour about his life inside