Anthony Eden should be living at this hour. He would hear the President of the United States say: ‘Half a century ago the world had the chance to stop a ruthless aggressor and missed it. I...
To many people it seems obvious that science is objective in a way that ethics is not. Without being able to characterise the contrast between the objectivity of science and the subjectivity of...
It is odd how much decades matter. The Twenties evoke an unmistakable image of self-consciously post-war modernity and frivolity; the Thirties of ideological polarisation in the face of the twin...
According to the dust-jacket of this book at least 750,000 German troops died of malnutrition and disease in US Army camps in North-West Europe after the end of the war, and over 250,000 in...
When I was a quivering graduate student at Oxford in 1973, fresh from the Northern provinces, I sat for the John Locke Prize, a voluntary two-day examination for Oxford postgraduates in...
The four essays the young Nietzsche wrote between August 1873 and July 1876 (as part of a larger project that was never completed) are linked by his concern over the state of German culture after...
The formation of a new Israeli government made up of the ultra-nationalist Right and the ultra-Orthodox is a propitious moment to reflect on the role of the radical Right in the history of...
At a time when half the Police Forces in Britain seem to be gainfully employed on investigations of the real or alleged misdeeds of the other half, the image of British justice, formerly as...
When one thinks of crime in France, one remembers those who are considered to be the great criminals, those who have met the guillotine, which has been called Le Goncourt des assassins. There is...
Robin Collingwood (1889-1943) was born 17 years after Bertrand Russell and died 27 years before him. Given the style and content of Collingwood’s philosophical work, this fact ought to seem...
Whoever thought up the title for this book must have wished it ill. The notion of a radical lawyer in Victorian England is profoundly distasteful. The word ‘radical’ is used both by...
The collapse of the Communist regimes of Eastern Europe and the dire condition of the Soviet Union have left Socialism almost irredeemably discredited. Understandably, the recent Labour policy...
At first glance, nothing seems less likely than that these two books were written by a single author. One is a piece of philosophical theorising about religion and its relation to the economic...
It is not possible to write about Salman Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses, and the Muslim response to it, without writing about the nature and history of Islam, the lives and problems of...
Despite its enormous learning, Judith Herrin’s work is marked by small personal touches which humanise the intricate story it tells. In an Afterword, she recalls a visit to Reichenau, which...
Henry VIII’s jurisidictional quarrel with the Papacy was not resolved, and its consequences are with us still. In Henry’s eyes the dispute was one of authority, not doctrine, but...
In recent years, nothing has done more to reinforce the European sense of cultural superiority than the sight of America’s televangelists. Easily stereotyped as politically reactionary,...
This quaint and inconclusive book is a compilation of tape-recorded interviews, presented as a discussion of professional crime in Britain, primarily London. A montage on the dust-cover promotes...