The joy of diversion

“We should have more history on the programme,” said Evan Davis at the end of yesterday’s episode of R4’s Today. “I learned a lot from that.” He had just been interviewing Peter Jones (listen here) about a piece in this week’s Spectator about the two Libyas — a split which may emerge as a result of the fly zone. Tripoli and Benghazi were originally part of two different worlds: Roman and Greek. For these coastal towns, north-south sea routes were more important than east-west road routes (which 500 miles of desert made pretty much impossible). Just as the Kurds managed independence in the north of Iraq after the 1992 No Fly Zone, so the ancient Cyrenaica may re-emerge now. Peter explains all this beautifully in this week’s magazine.

As Evan Davis indicated, such historical insights are pretty rare now — on the radio, or in print. But not in The Spectator.