Growing up in the seventies I was a socialist.  I was a pretty moderate socialist, but a socialist nonetheless.  But as I thought things through and became more aware of how the world was, I began to realise that socialists had two huge problems.  The first was the USSR.  The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

With the latest results just in from the process to select the Republican candidate just in, yet another upset has materialised with the front runner, Mitt Romney, failing to win any states.  This fits in beautifully with the narrative being applied to the story by the media.  Republican voters are, we are told, deeply unhappy

Niall Ferguson’s one hour history and sketch of China started with him admitting that he didn’t really understand it – in fact he feels like he is an alien when he visits.  Not a promising introduction, but he soon starts giving the lie to it by pointing out some of those obvious facts that stare

It is a good sign when a book doesn’t fit into an obvious category.  It is probably a nightmare for a librarian or a bookseller, but it is good news for the reader.  There is less risk that you are going to read the same old stuff you have read before – we all enjoy

Since it came out in 1997 Guns, Germs and Steel is a book that has been much discussed and praised. It has been at the top of my to read list for some time. It has taken me rather a while to actually get round to reading it. I was waiting for it to come

  John Bagnell Bury’s Invasion of Europe by the Barbarians takes the story of the fall of the Roman Empire and tells it from the barbarian point of view.  This is not the normal perspective on the story, but it is a more positive way to look at it.  After all, when the empire fell