c o n t e n t s mar c h 2 0 1 2 • i s s u e 3 9 6

Editor Nancy Sladek Deputy Editor Tom Fleming Editor-at-Large Jeremy Lewis Senior Editor Jonathan Beckman Editorial Assistants Frank Brinkley • Tom Williams Contributing Editors Michael Burleigh Sara Wheeler • Philip Womack Advertising Manager Terry Finnegan Classified Advertising David Sturge Founding Father Auberon Waugh Cover Illustration Chris Riddell

The Literary Review, incorporating Quarto, is published monthly from: 44 Lexington Street, London W1F 0LW • Tel: 020 7437 9392 Fax: 020 7734 1844 • ISSN 0144 4360 © All subscription enquiries and changes of address to: Literary Review Subscriptions, FREEPOST RSJB-SUGY-ZKRA, Impakt MMD Ltd, 3-4 Pylon Way, Croydon CR0 4XX • Tel: 020 8683 7151 All advertising enquiries to: Terry Finnegan, Literary Review, 44 Lexington Street, London W1F 0LW • Tel: 020 7437 9392 Printed in the United Kingdom by: Henry Ling Ltd, at the Dorset Press, Dorchester DT1 1HD • Tel: 01305 251 066 Distributed to newsagents worldwide by: COMAG Specialist, Tavistock Works, Tavistock Rd, West Drayton, Middlesex, UB7 7QX • Tel: 01895 433 800 Distributed to bookshops by: Central Books, 99 Wallis Road, London E9 5LN • Tel: 020 8986 4854 Subscriptions: theliteraryreview@warnes.co.uk Editorial: editorial@literaryreview.co.uk www.literaryreview.co.uk • @lit_review Designed by Cog Design Literary Review is set in Adobe Caslon and Janet. The latter is a digitisation of an engraved typeface designed by the artist and typographer Reynolds Stone, and named after his wife.

Literary Review | m a r c h 2 0 1 2 2

f r om the p u l p i t 1 Frances Wilson f i r e b r a nd s 5 Jerry Brotton

Savonarola: The Rise and Fall of a Renaissance Prophet Donald Weinstein • Machiavelli: A Life Beyond Ideology Paul Oppenheimer 7 Paul Johnson

Reagan &Thatcher: The Difficult Relationship Richard Aldous 8 Damian Thompson

The Red Dean of Canterbury: The Public and Private Faces of Hewlett Johnson John Butler men o f l e t t e r s 9 Patrick Wilcken

Saussure John E Joseph 11 Cather ine Peters

Wilkie Collins Peter Ackroyd 12 Matthew Adams

The Complete Poems of Philip Larkin (Ed) Archie Burnett h i st or y 14 Adrian Tinniswood

God ’s Instruments: Political Conduct in the England of Oliver Cromwell Blair Worden 15 Mic hael Jacobs

The Spanish Holocaust: Inquisition and Extermination in Twentieth-Century Spain Paul Preston 16 N orma Clarke

The Origins of Sex: A History of the First Sexual Revolution Faramerz Dabhoiwala 17 T imothy Brook

Lost Colony: The Untold Story of China’s First Great Victory over the West Tonio Andrade 19 Andr ew Lambert

Blue-Water Empire: The British in the Mediterranean since 1800 Robert Holland 20 F elipe Fernández-Armesto

The Great Divide: History and Human Nature in the Old World and the New Peter Watson 22 Mic hael Burleigh

George F Kennan: An American Life John Lewis Gaddis 23 Ric hard Overy

Blitz Kids: The Children’s War against Hitler Sean Longden 24 N ick Rankin

Target Tirpitz: X-Craft, Agents and Dambusters Patrick Bishop