Conservative History Journal

Not one, not two but three books on the go. One was lent Tory Historian by a friend in Paris, whence the book bag came back with more volumes in it than it had departed with. It is a collection of essays by Christopher Hitchens, erstwhile left-wing and now rather right-wing though not precisely conservative scourge of all and sundry.

Entitled "Love, Poverty and War", it is well worth reading for the evisceration of Michael Moore if nothing else. But, as it happens there are numerous fascinating pieces, not least on Winston Churchill, Rudyard Kipling, Aldous Huxley, Evelyn Waugh, David Irving and Mel Gibson. Sometimes Hitchens goes strangely astray in making serious errors of omission and commission. But mostly it is pure unadulterated intellectual joy. Not for those with weak nerves.

For serious reading there is Mitzi Auchterlonie's "Conservative Suffragists", a seriously underrated subject so far. In general, not enough has been written about women in the Conservative Party and on that side of the political divide, though in many ways they achieved more than their much-trumpeted colleagues on the left. This book should balance matters out somewhat. There will be another posting about it.

Finally, a book acquired today: "The Letters of Julian Maclaren-Ross", launched, very appropriately, in the upstairs bar of the Wheasheaf pub in North Soho (and no, there is no such place as NoHo in London). The whole event was organized by the excellent Sohemian Society, one that all conservatives, liberal conservatives and, dare one say it, libertarians should pay attention to.

Fans of Anthony Powell will recall that Julian Maclaren-Ross, who appears a good deal in Powell's memoirs, was also the inspiration for X. Trapnel in the last trilogy of the "Dance to the Music of Time".