Diary

R.W. Johnson is an emeritus fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. His new book, South Africa’s Brave New World, will be published by Penguin in the spring.

Other articles by this contributor:

Where do we go from here? · Zimbabwe

Mr Shepperd to you · Classes and Cultures: England 1918-51 by Ross McKibbin

Nerds, Rabbits and a General Lack of Testosterone · Major and Lamont

How Mugabe came to power · R.W. Johnson talks to Wilfred Mhanda

Cads · Roosevelt’s Secret War: FDR and World War Two Espionage by Joseph Persico.

Burning Blankets · Robert Mugabe’s latest tidy-up

Rogue’s Paradise · The Russians and the Anglo-Boer War by Apollon Davidson and Irina Filatova

Her Boy · Mark Thatcher