Peter Gwyn

SIR: For some inexplicable reason most historians these days, but not Sir Moses Finley, have a kind of death wish by which, if presented with a little space and a wider audience, they do everything possible to alienate their readers. C.R. Whittaker did have the grace to admit that what he wrote had very little to do with the book by Finley which he was ostensibly meant to review, and about which the...

SIR: What can I say in reply to Professor Collinson (Letters, 7 February) but that he of all people writes as someone ‘passionately interested in imparting his views’, and that is one of the reasons why he is such a good historian. Of course, passion is not the only criterion: intelligence, knowledge, honesty in confronting the evidence, and no doubt lots of other things as well. But dispassionate...