In this enjoyably iconoclastic book, George Watson discusses some of the great heresies of the twentieth century, and the cultural heretics who espoused them, often with surprising results. Watson provides us with examples of 'true', original heretics, from Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, who asserted that his study of the remote past had made a radical of him, rather than any influence of modernism, to others such as Douglas Adams, whom Watson knew as an undergraduate.

Watson forces us to question various long-cherished political and intellectual assumptions in his witty and conversational style. Is snobbery really such a bad thing? Have we ignored the links between socialism and genocide? He touches entertainingly upon subjects as diverse as literary theory (experimental fiction is often the last resort of those who have nothing to say), and the unoriginal conformism of teenage Marxists (incapable of actually reading Marx, as he is too boring).

This is a work which will delight any reader seeking a uniquely personal perspective on the culture, history, and personalities of the twentieth century.

Preface

Part I: Heresies
1. Who are the Heretics?
2. The War of the Canon
3. A View from the Basement
4. The Virtue of Verse
5. The Privilege of Absurdity
6. The Best of British
7. Making History
8. Shooting a President
9. Commonplaces
10. No Marx for Engels

Part II: More Heresies
11. Americanophilia
12. The Americanness of Poetry
13. The Rain in Spain
14. Educating the Prime Minister
15. The Indictment of the Germans
16. Thoughts on a Dead Elephant
17. The Sudden Death of Imperial Guilt

Part III: The Heretics
18. P.G. Wodehouse
19. The Forgotten Churchill
20. Arthur Quiller-Couch
21. E.M. Forster
22. C.P. Snow
23. Hugh Sykes Davies
24. Angus Wilson
25. Moses Finley
26. Hugh Trevor-Roper
27. Frank Kermode
29. Douglas Adams

Index

   Preface » (PDF, 77 KB)
   Chapter 1: Who are the Heretics? » (PDF, 123 KB)
   Chapter 7: Making History » (PDF, 121 KB)
   Chapter 18: P.G. Wodehouse » (PDF, 149 KB)

George Watson is a Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, author of The Literary Critics and general editor of the New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature. He is also the author of The Lost Literature of Socialism (1st Edition 1998, 2nd Edition 2010); Never Ones For Theory? England and the War of Ideas (2001); Take Back the Past: Myths of the Twentieth Century (2007); and The Story of the Novel (2008).