Book Reviews

Before ‘nationalism’ became a dirty word, it was the inspiration for all sorts of idealistic and reform-minded people. This was never more true than in the history of music. Clearly, subsequent events have discredited some of those 19th-century ideals. It is striking, however, that we have become uncomfortable with Wagner’s German nationalism while continuing to regard Smetana’s Czech nationalism as an admirable, even inspiring quality. At times one feels that some musical nationalists are given too easy a ride — as if what happened in the opera house couldn’t conceivably affect anything outside it. A notable instance is the case of the remarkable group of composers which gathered in 1850s

I’m delighted to present the first View from 22 books podcast. We begin with Allan Mallinson’s new book 1914: Fight the Good Fight (reviewed here by Peter J. Conradi), which argues that the Great War might have been won in 1915 if the British Expeditionary Force had been used as a strategic reserve in 1914. Mallinson and Charlotte Moore (who has reviewed Great Britain’s Great War by Jeremy Paxman and Fighting on the Home Front by Kate Adie in the latest issue of the Spectator) imagine what modern Britain would look like if the war had ended earlier. Ann Treneman has written Finding the Plot: 100 Graves You Must See Before You Die.

Spectator literary competition No. 2823 This week’s assignment offers an opportunity to put yourselves into the 8-year-old shoes of future heads of state or literary giants. You are invited to submit a school essay or poem written at the age of eight by any well-known person, living or dead, entitled ‘My Pet’. Please email entries, of up to 16 lines or 150 words, to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 6 November. Here are the results of this week’s challenge, in which competitors were asked to supply a postscript to any well-known novel.

A delightful anecdote in Jonathan Aitken’s new biography of Margaret Thatcher, which is out today. Visiting the French estate of the late Jimmy Goldsmith in 1997, with Denis and Bill and Biddy Cash, Lady T posed for a photograph in front of the giant statue of Lenin that resides in the woodland of Montjeu. ‘I just want to show him we won,’ declared the late PM. History is written by the victors.