Jonathan Sumption admires the sweep and bravura of Max Hastings’s account without agreeing with every word The second world war is still generally regarded as the ‘good war’. In the moral balance, the cause of the Axis powers was so unspeakably bad that their adversaries have rarely had to justify themselves. But there is, perhaps,
There is something of Gordon Brown in the older Henry VII: an impression of darkness, of paranoia and barely suppressed rage, not to mention the terrifying tax grabs and tormenting of enemies. But Gordon was never quite as entertaining, or frightening, as Thomas Penn’s Winter King in this brilliant mash-up of gothic horror and political
David Bellos is a professor of comparative literature. He is the main English translator of George Perec and Ismail Kadare, and he has written biographies of Perec, Jacques Tati and the French writer and con man Romain Gary. His most recent book, for which he draws on all his wide range of interests, is a
Even the cover is a mystery. Julian Assange’s memoir carries a contradictory, if eye-catching, title: the unauthorised autobiography. On his WikiLeaks site the author disclaims authorship altogether. ‘I am not “the writer” of this book. I own the copyright of the manuscript which was written by Andrew O’Hagan.’ He claims that the text was ‘distributed
There lived a happy Coelacanth In dim, primordial seas; He ate and mated, hunted, slept, Completely at his ease. Dame Nature urged: ‘Evolve!’ He said: ‘Excuse me, Ma’am, You get on with making Darwin, I’m staying as I am.’ Horace Shipp’s little hymn to the ‘living fossil’ fish-with-legs — thought long extinct then astonishingly discovered
Britain has not been lucky with her Defence Secretaries. I cannot remember one ‘fit for purpose’ since George Robertson, back in 1999. There followed, under New Socialism, the colourless provincial lawyer who helped Blair lie his way into Iraq (I forget his name, as it’s always imprudent to libel a lawyer). Then came the wee
As a child, Mark Girouard must have been easy to buy for at Christmas. An ideal gift would have been a puzzle, preferably the sort that looks easy, but is actually fiendish; one you have patiently to tease away at for hours until finally you unlock it, and long to share its cunning solution. This
Talk about timing. Just as Robert Harris’s cautionary tale about the perils of meddling with the financial markets was hitting the shelves, Greece was teetering on the edge of default and Swiss Bank UBS announced that unauthorised trading by one of the company’s investment bankers had led to $2.3 billion worth of losses. Harris has
In 1902 Jack London determined to travel to East London. He relates in People of the Abyss how he approached Thomas Cook & Son, but was disappointed to find that though a travel agent unhesitatingly and instantly, with ease and celerity, could send me to Darkest Africa or Innermost Tibet, but to the East of
Political sketchwriting, like most humorous writing, is one of those things that looks easy, especially to people who would never be able to do it in a trillion years. At any one time, though, there are only a couple of sketchwriters who are any good at all, and some of us find we move papers
