CONTENTS

THIS MONTH’S PULPIT is written by Simon Singh, author of Fermat’s Last Theorem, Big Bang and The Code Book. He is also the co-author (with Professor Edzard Ernst) of Trick or Treatment? Alternative Medicine on Trial, which indirectly led to him being sued for libel.

LAWRENCE JAMES is author of The Golden Warrior: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia (Abacus) and is currently writing a book on Winston Churchill and the British Empire.

DIARMAID MACCULLOCH is Fellow of St Cross College and Professor of the History of the Church, Oxford University. His l a test book i s A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years (Allen Lane).

RAYMOND SEITZ was US Ambassador to the Court of St James from 1991 to 1994.

DIANA ATHILL is the author of Stet and Yesterday Morning: A Very English Childhood and, most recently, Somewhere Towards the End, which won the Costa Book Award for biography in 2008.

JUREK MARTIN is a Financial Times columnist in Washington and was twice its bureau chief there.

LESLIE MITCHELL is Emeritus Fellow of University College, Oxford. His publications include a study of the Whig Party entitled The Whig World.

DAVID PROFUMO’s family memoir Bringing the House Down is published in paperback by John Murray.

DONALD RAYFIELD i s Emeritus Professor of Russian and Georgian at Queen Mary University of London, and author of Stalin and his Hangmen (Penguin, 2005).

MICHAEL BURLEIGH’s Blood & Rage: A Cultural History of Terrorism is available in paperback from HarperPerennial.

PULPIT

BIOGRAPHY

HISTORY

LITERARY LIVES

MIND & BODY

FOREIGN PARTS

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SIMON SINGH

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DIARMAID MACCULLOCH Newman’s Unquiet Grave: The Reluctant Saint John Cornwell DONALD RAYFIELD Pavel Florensky: A Quiet Genius – The Tragic and Extraordinary Life of Russia’s Unknown Da Vinci Avril Pyman LESLIE MITCHELL Moses Montefiore: Jewish Liberator, Imperial Hero Abigail Green JONATHAN BECKMAN A King’s Ransom: The Life of Charles Théveneau de Morande, Blackmailer, Scandalmonger & Master-Spy Simon Burrows PAUL JOHNSON Philip de László: His Life and Art Duff Hart-Davis JUREK MARTIN The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama David Remnick

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LAWRENCE JAMES The Berlin–Baghdad Express: The Ottoman Empire and Germany’s Bid for World Power, 1898–1918 Sean McMeekin BRIAN MACARTHUR The Burma Campaign: Disaster into Triumph, 1942–45 Frank McLynn RAYMOND SEITZ The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull and the Battle of the Little Big Horn Nathaniel Philbrick PAUL CARTLEDGE Lords of the Sea: The Triumph and Tragedy of Ancient Athens John R Hale RICHARD DAVENPORT-HINES History and the Enlightenment Hugh Trevor-Roper

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DEREK MAHON Letters of Louis MacNeice (Ed) Jonathan Allison JOHN SUTHERLAND E M Forster: A New Life Wendy Moffat Concerning E M Forster Frank Kermode RICHARD GRAY Wolf: The Lives of Jack London James L Haley

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MICHAEL BYWATER How Pleasure Works: The New Science of How We Like What We Like Paul Bloom DAVID PROFUMO What’s Eating You? People and Parasites Eugene H Kaplan

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JOHN KEAY Curfewed Night: A Frontline Memoir of Life, Love and War in Kashmir Basharat Peer CATHERINE MERRIDALE Engineers of the Soul: In the Footsteps of Stalin’s Writers Frank Westerman PATRICK WILLIAMS The Escorial: Art and Power in the Renaissance Henry Kamen

LITERARY REVIEW June 2010

Editor: NANCY SLADEK Deputy Editor: TOM FLEMING Editor-at-Large: JEREMY LEWIS Assistant Editor: JONATHAN BECKMAN Editorial Assistant: ALEXANDER BLASDEL Contributing Editors: MICHAEL BURLEIGH,

SARA WHEELER, PHILIP WOMACK Advertising Manager: TERRY FINNEGAN

Founding Editor: DR ANNE SMITH Founding Father: AUBERON WAUGH

Cover illustration by Chris Riddell

Issue no. 377

2 JUNE 2010

MEMOIRS

WARFARE

GENERAL

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

FICTION

CRIME POETRY SILENCED VOICES LR CROSSWORD LR CLASSIFIEDS LR BOOKSHOP

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DIANA ATHILL The Hare with the Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance Edmund de Waal CHRISTOPHER SILVESTER Hitch-22: A Memoir Christopher Hitchens WILLIAM PALMER ON FOUR MEMOIRS

PATRICK HENNESSEY War Sebastian Junger ANDREW LYCETT GCHQ: The Uncensored Story of Britain’s Most Secret Intelligence Agency Richard J Aldrich NIGEL JONES Hurricane: Victor of the Battle of Britain Leo McKinstry

RICHARD HOLLOWAY On Evil Terry Eagleton ALAN RYAN The Enigma of Capital: And the Crises of Capitalism David Harvey MICHAEL BURLEIGH The Uses of Pessimism and the Danger of Hope Roger Scruton DOUGLAS MURRAY The Tyranny of Guilt: An Essay on Western Masochism Pascal Bruckner BRYAN APPLEYARD Absence of Mind: The Dispelling of Inwardness from the Modern Myth of the Self Marilynne Robinson PETER JONES Full Circle: How the Classical World Came Back to Us Ferdinand Mount ANDREW BROWN Against the Flow Tom Fort HARRY MOUNT At Home: A Short History of Private Life Bill Bryson

PHILIP WOMACK ON TEN BOOKS FOR THE SUMMER

GILES MURRAY The Changeling Kenzaburo Oe PAMELA NORRIS The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim Jonathan Coe SAM LEITH Beatrice and Virgil Yann Martel ELSPETH BARKER The Lost Books of the Odyssey Zachary Mason ROSALIND PORTER ON FIRST NOVELS EDMUND GORDON The Birth of Love Joanna Kavenna JONATHAN MIRSKY The Surrendered Chang-rae Lee CAROLINE MOOREHEAD A Different Sky Meira Chand DANIEL METCALFE The Pindar Diamond Katie Hickman

JESSICA MANN

LUCY POPESCU

RICHARD HOLLOWAY is a writer and broadcaster. A former Bishop of Edinburgh and Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, his latest book is Between the Monster and the Saint (Canongate).

JOHN SUTHERLAND is the Lord Northcliffe Professor of English Emeritus at UCL.

ALAN RYAN was until 2009 Warden of New College, Oxford. He is now Senior Research Fellow in Political Theory.

DEREK MAHON won the prestigious David Cohen Prize for Literature in 2007. His l atest collection i s An Autumn Wind (Gallery Books).

PAUL CARTLEDGE is the A G Leventis Professor of Greek Culture at Cambridge University and an honorary citizen of (modern) Sparta. His most recent book is Ancient Greece: A History in Eleven Cities (OUP).

HARRY MOUNT is the author of A Lust for Window Sills (Little Brown).

CATHERINE MERRIDALE is Professor of Contemporary History at Queen Mary, University of London. She is currently preparing a major new cultural history of the Moscow Kremlin.

DANIEL METCALFE’s Out of Steppe is out now in paperback (Arrow Books).

DOUGLAS MURRAY is the director of the Centre for Social Cohesion.

PATRICK HENNESSEY is the author of The Junior Officers’ Reading Club (Allen Lane).

RICHARD GRAY is Professor of Literature at the University of Essex. His most recent book is A Web of Words: The Great Dialogue of Southern Literature.

MICHAEL BYWATER is currently writing a very unscientific musical about Oscar Wilde with the legendary American songwriters Lieber & Stoller.

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LITERARY REVIEW June 2010