Ian Garrick-Mason

The doubtful eye of the beholder

  • On Beauty

    edited by Umberto Eco

    Secker, pp. 438

  • A History of Human Beauty

    Arthur Marwick

    Hambledon & London, pp. 276

In this historic moment of struggle between freedom and tyranny, with the destinies of entire nations hanging in the balance, the question of what ‘beauty’ is might seem a frivolous one, best put off until happier times. Until, that is, one remembers that now is always a historic moment, that the destinies of nations are always hanging in the balance.

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