I'm currently reading Raymond Bradley's new book Global Warming and Political Intimidation, which is very interesting. The sense I get from the book is of a minor civil servant trying to justify some almighty great shambles over which he has presided, which in a way is what the Hockey Stick story is about.
It's a very political work, with Bradley apparently seeing pretty much everything through a political lens: in several places in the book we are presented with stories of valiant Democrats defending honest scientists from wicked Republicans. We have, in essence, a minor civil servant who thinks he's living in a fairy tale and trying to justify himself to the world.
Because of this political focus, there is remarkably little discussion of the science and although there is a chapter on the Hockey Stick, there is no mention of bristlecones or principal components analysis. (And before you ask, no, he doesn't mention the Hockey Stick Illusion either). However, he does make an attempt to defend the science of the Hockey Stick, and my attention is going to be focused there. There's quite a lot to say on this subject, however, so I'm going to break the analysis down into separate posts.