contents
october 2018 • issue 469
Editor Nancy Sladek Deputy Editor Tom Fleming Assistant Editors Frank Brinkley • David Gelber Editorial Assistant Paloma van Tol Contributing Editors Jonathan Beckman Michael Burleigh • Sara Wheeler • Philip Womack Advertising Manager Terry Finnegan Classified Advertising David Sturge Marketing Manager Katherine Bogden Bayard Founding Editor Dr Anne Smith 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, The Maltings, West Street, Bourne, Lincolnshire PE10 9PH • Tel: +44 (0) 1778 395 165 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: Seymour Distribution Ltd • Tel: 0207 429 4000 Distributed to bookshops by: Central Books, 99 Wallis Road, London E9 5LN • Tel: 020 8986 4854 Subscriptions: subscriptions@warnersgroup.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 | october 2018 2
diary 1 Ian Rankin
history 6 Christopher Goscha
Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy, 1945–1975 Max Hastings 7 Frances Cairncross
What We Have Lost James Hamilton-Paterson 9 Frank McLynn
Turncoat: Benedict Arnold & the Crisis of American Liberty Stephen Brumwell 10 Levi Roach
King Arthur: The Making of the Legend Nicholas J Higham
churchill 12 Piers Brendon
Churchill: Walking with Destiny Andrew Roberts • Churchill: The Statesman as Artist David Cannadine 14 Anne Sebba
Darling Winston David Lough
commons & clergy 16 Robin Oakley
Punch and Judy Politics Ayesha Hazarika & Tom Hamilton 17 Paul Lay
A Field Guide to the English Clergy Fergus Butler-Gallie
espionage 18 Frederick Forsyth
The Spy and the Traitor Ben Macintyre
letters 20 Tim Stanley
To Obama Jeanne Marie Laskas 21 Harry Mount
More Dashing Adam Sisman (ed) 22 Sally Bayley
The Letters of Sylvia Plath, Volume II: 1956–1963 Peter K Steinberg & Karen V Kukil (edd)
biography 24 Tom Stern
I Am Dynamite! A Life of Friedrich Nietzsche Sue Prideaux 26 Jad Adams
Oscar: A Life Matthew Sturgis 28 Ian Sansom
The Real Lolita: The Kidnapping of Sally Horner & the Novel That Scandalized the World Sarah Weinman
