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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 | n o v e m b e r 2 0 1 1 2
f r om the p u l p i t 1 Adam Sisman b i o g r a p hy & memoir 5 Graham Hutchings
Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China Ezra F Vogel 7 David Cesarani
Heinrich Himmler Peter Longerich 9 Robert Irwin
Orientalist Jones: Sir William Jones, Poet, Lawyer, and Linguist, 1746–1794 Michael J Franklin 10 Richard Davenport-Hines
Fortune’s Spear: The Story of the Blue-Blooded Rogue behind the most Notorious City Scandal of the 1920s Martin Vander Weyer 12 Michael Fathers
Bligh: William Bligh in the South Seas Anne Salmond 13 Sebastian Shakespeare One on One Craig Brown 14 Jane Thynne
Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal Jeanette Winterson • Blue Nights Joan Didion • Ghosts by Daylight: A Memoir of War & Love Janine di Giovanni l i t e r a r y l i v e s 15 Seamus Perry
The Keats Brothers: The Life of John and George Denise Gigante 16 Kevin Jackson
Alfred Jarry: A Pataphysical Life Alastair Brotchie 17 Norma Clarke
Wits and Wives: Dr Johnson in the Company of Women Kate Chisholm 18 Justin Beplate
Unlikely Collaboration: Gertrude Stein, Bernard Faÿ, and the Vichy Dilemma Barbara Will 20 Allan Massie
Ifs and Buts: Personal Terms 5 Frederic Raphael t omorrow ’s wor l d 21 Steve Fuller
The Brain is Wider than the Sky: Why Simple Solutions Don’t Work in a Complex World Bryan Appleyard 22 Irwin Stelzer
The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World Daniel Yergin c o n t e n t s
24 Anthony Daniels
The Viral Storm: The Dawn of a New Pandemic Age Nathan Wolfe h i st or y 25 Donald Rayfield
Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe Norman Davies 26 Blair Worden
A Book Forged in Hell: Spinoza’s Scandalous Treatise and the Birth of the Secular Age Steven Nadler 28 Mark G Spencer
Independence: The Struggle to Set America Free John Ferling 29 Nigel Jones on five books about the First World War men o f l e t t e r s 31 John Montague
The Letters of Samuel Beckett, Volume II: 1941–1956 (Edd) George Craig, Martha Dow Fehsenfeld, Dan Gunn & Lois More Overbeck 33 Roger Kimball
P G Wodehouse: A Life in Letters (Ed) Sophie Ratcliffe 36 Caroline Moorehead
The Letters of Ernest Hemingway, Volume 1: 1907–1922 (Edd) Sandra Spanier & Robert W Trogdon men o f war 37 Andrew Roberts
Napoleon Alan Forrest • Napoleon and the Rebel: A Story of Brotherhood, Passion, and Power Marcello Simonetta & Noga Arikha 38 James Holland
Free France’s Lion: The Life of Philippe Leclerc, de Gaulle’s Greatest General William Mortimer Moore 40 Alex Danchev
The Artist and the Warrior: Military History through the Eyes of the Masters Theodore K Rabb g e n e r a l 41 Jerry Brotton
Florence and Baghdad: Renaissance Art and Arab Science Hans Belting 42 Adrian Tinniswood
The Shakespeare Thefts: In Search of the First Folios Eric Rasmussen
43 Daniel Snowman
Victorian Culture and Classical Antiquity: Art, Opera, Fiction, and the Proclamation of Modernity Simon Goldhill 44 Christopher Hart
You Talkin’ to Me? Rhetoric from Aristotle to Obama Sam Leith 45 Manjit Kumar
The Reason Why: The Miracle of Life on Earth John Gribbin 46 Jonathan Mirsky on five books about Afghanistan 49 Hazhir Teimourian
The Pigeon Wars of Damascus Marius Kociejowski 50 Raleigh Trevelyan
The Levelling Sea: The Story of a Cornish Haven in the Age of Sail Philip Marsden 51 John Sweeney
Private Eye, the First Fifty Years: An A–Z Adam Macqueen f i c t i on 52 Toby Lichtig
1Q84 Haruki Murakami 53 David Annand
The Tragedy of Arthur Arthur Phillips 54 James Purdon
The Angel Esmeralda: Nine Stories Don DeLillo 54 Miranda France
Good Offices Evelio Rosero 55 Kate Saunders
How It All Began Penelope Lively 56 Ivan Juritz
The Cold Eye of Heaven Christine Dwyer Hickey 57 John Dugdale
The Devil All the Time Donald Ray Pollock • The Outlaw Album Daniel Woodrell 58 Daniel Metcalfe
The Message Tariq Goddard
59 Lucy Popescu Silenced Voices 60 Jessica Mann Crime 32 Crossword 62 Poetry Competition n o v e m b e r 2 0 1 1 | Literary Review 3