Robert Salisbury

Hermione Ranfurly wrote two books. One was called The Ugly One. The other, the first, was called To War with Whitaker. Its success came as a surprise to her, but to none of her legion of friends. It chronicled her war. Recently married to Dan, a Northern Irish peer whose father had lost almost everything, mostly on the green baize, she determined to pursue him, his horses and his yeomanry regiment to the Middle East, no matter that the army, the War Office and official Whitehall expressly forbade such camp following. She eventually reached Cairo and secured a job in SOE. She had already demonstrated her determination by getting there. Once in Egypt, she used her genius for diagnosing character and her infectious enthusiasm to get to know anyone who was anyone.

Every schoolboy knows that the two most delightful breeds of dog are the Working Clumber Spaniel and the Newfoundland. Any author who dedicates a book to ‘Wellesley, a New- foundland dog’ is therefore by defin- ition a man of discernment. Sadly, the dedication is the best thing about the book, which is a perfectly readable, if unoriginal, canter through the English peerage since 1066, with excursions into Scotland and Ireland. For one thing, it teems with distracting howlers which undermine confidence in the author’s broader judgment. Diana Mosley was not Lord Curzon’s daughter. She was Lord Redesdale’s. This Lord Cobbold is an hereditary, not a life, peer. Lord John Manners, the 19th-century politician, was not the Duke of Rutland’s eldest son.

Margaret MacMillan’s Peacemakers deservedly attracted the highest praise. It was illuminating and a compelling read. Equally, her Women of the Raj evoked the lost world of the memsahibs — courag- eous, often narrow and intolerant, but dauntless as they nearly always were. Now, from her eminence as Warden of St Anthony’s College, Oxford, she stands back a little and considers the uses and abuses of history. The result is not a long book — always an attractive characteristic — but it is a worthy one. It will certainly bring back memories for those who, in the mid 20th century, offered a special paper as part of their A-levels or who attempted the Modern History School at Oxford shortly afterwards. Why should we study history? Can we learn anything from it?

Putin and the Rise of Russia, by Michael Stuermer For many years, Professor Michael Stuermer has been one of the West’s most respected authorities both on Russia and on Germany. As at home in English as in his native German, he has pursued not only an academic career, but has brought lustre to the usually grubby trade of journalism as chief correspondent for Die Welt. Few can be as well qualified to write about contemporary Russia, to analyse the extraordinary phenomenon of Putin or to add a late addendum on Putin’s successor, Dmitri Medvedev. The resulting book is authoritative, readable and concise.

A Political Suicide: The Conservatives’ Voyage into the Wilderness, by Norman Fowler To write a political memoir is difficult. Too bland, too afraid to be rude about former colleagues, you risk boring the general reader while disappointing your publisher. Too critical, you lose the few friends among your former colleagues you have left, while appearing spiteful and embittered to the general reader. We can all think of examples of ex-ministers in both categories. Nigel Lawson is one of the few among late-20th-century politicians who have avoided both Pooh-traps and produced a memoir which is near to being required reading for the interested amateur. Norman Fowler is no Nigel Lawson.

The commentariat has at last realised that in practice, if not in theory, the Labour Party believes in the hereditary principle. This is a phenomenon that those of us who, for one reason or another, have innate antennae for such things have long recognised. Homo sapiens in settled societies is more likely to follow anthropology than ideology and therefore successful politics has been more acutely analysed by Mary Douglas than by Marx. What perhaps, however, has been forgotten in the rush to dump on Gordon Brown is quite how weird the Blair régime was. Michael Levy’s book provides us with a reminder. (In accordance with New Labour practice, he calls himself ‘Lord Michael Levy’ although the son of neither a duke nor a marquess.

As Zimbabwe celebrated its independence in April 1980 President Nyerere of Tanzania had a piece of advice for Robert Mugabe: ‘You have inherited a jewel. Keep it that way.’ At first, it seemed that Mugabe would take his fellow socialist’s advice. His address to the nation on the eve of independence gave all Zimbabweans hope that, white and black, they could together rebuild the country after the miseries of the guerrilla war. Guguletho Moyo and Mark Ashurst quote the speech in full at the beginning of their useful compendium, and Martin Meredith reminds us that, after an initial interview, Ian Smith himself reported that he had found Mugabe not ‘the apostle of Satan’ but ‘sober and responsible’.

Professor Kennedy is a decent liberal who hopes for the victory of the brotherhood of man. He begins this study of the UN, its history, successes, failings and prospects for reform by quoting Tennyson’s ‘Locksley Hall’: Till the war-drum throbb’d no longer, and the battle-flags were furl’dIn the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe,And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law. In his Afterword, he does remind us that Tennyson revised his optimism 60 years later: Chaos, Cosmos! Cosmos, Chaos! Who can tell how all will end?…When was age so crammed with menace? madness? written, spoken lies?

Any book about the exercise of power that carries a ringing endorsement by Peter Hen- nessy on its dust-cover promises well. Perhaps, therefore, it is the fault of this reviewer that he felt that Professor Mulgan had generated rather less excitement than Professor Hennessy had promised. Hennessy’s own books reflect his own personality: they fizz, they crackle with excitement and find it difficult to suppress whoops of laughter. Yet they illuminate and inform. In this book, Geoff Mulgan’s remarkable command of the literature of power ranges not just over the European tradition, from Solon to Bobbitt, but, in a world where Western supremacy is being challenged by China, India and Islam, over Eastern traditions as well.

There is a delightful tradition among the English of writing guide books to inaccessible parts of the world. Nowhere has inspired us more than South and Central Asia, seat of the Raj and the theatre that staged the Great Game. Contrary to what one might suppose, it is not a tradition that died with the last King-Emperor. Among the most useful in the genre is, for instance, A Traveller’s Guide to Pakistan, published in 1981 and compiled by Hilary Adams and Isobel Shaw, two diplomatic wives who thus rendered at least as great service as their husbands. Their efforts would have been justified by one entry alone.

Geoffrey Wheatcroft is rarely dull in print and this book is no exception. It is a rattling good read, although more because of its knowledge of insiders’ gossip, its pithy judgments of both men and measures and the rhythm of its prose than because of the force of its central thesis. His judgments of men may be pithy, but they also often hit the mark. For instance, he recognises the Tory party’s recurrent faiblesse for charming mountebanks. So, he has Disraeli and Macmillan bang to rights and, while acknowledging Churchill’s greatness in 1940, he can say with perfect accuracy, ‘Churchill may have been the grandson of a duke, an Old Harrovian and a hussar officer, but he wasn’t a gentleman.

We live in a demotic age. How is it therefore that by the beginning of the 21st century the Duke of Devonshire had become a national institution? If you doubt that fact you need only refer to Patrick Leigh Fermor’s lyrical account of the funeral in this magazine or the hundreds of column inches devoted to His Grace’s passing. There were hardly any sour notes from the commentariat. On the whole the Dutt-Paukers of Marxmount were silent and the new ruling class for once forbore to spin. It is not explanation enough to say that Devonshire was a kind and generous man with a witty turn of phrase and a Whiggish sense of style. He was indeed all of that and more.

Sir Peregrine is a romantic. He has drawn his sword from its scabbard in defence of aristocracy in a self-conscious act of courage which defies the pressures of self-censorship. We should admire his intention and welcome an essay whose style is so reminiscent of the man with its echoes of the dégagé elegance of corduroy suits, casually knotted scarves and agreeable luncheons in the Beefsteak Club. Every successful polity is run by an élite. They lay down the rules, written and, even more important, unwritten. Their manners become the aspiration of the majority and in consequence civility and social coherence trickle down the social scale. Public service then becomes the indispensable companion of riches, reducing selfish ostentation to mere vulgarity.