The Wartime Journals

Reviews / Votes

'... a marvelous book, packed with philosophical speculation, historical sketches, ravishingly beautiful nature writing, jokes, squibs, insults, and affirmations. The editing is impeccable and in its way, suitably eccentric and amusing.' New York Review of Books; '...the surviving Wartime Journals, now excellently edited by Richard Davenport-Hines, provide us with a fascinating insight into Trevor-Roper himself and the war as well - Often the style of the journals is so highly developed that one has to remind oneself that the author was not even 30 when he put down his thoughts and experiences.' Brendan Simms, The Wall Street Journal; '[A] humorous, waspish and intriguing performance.' Allan Mallinson, The Times; '...superlatively entertaining.' John Banville 'Richard Davenport-Hines has ably edited the wartime diaries of Trevor-Roper himself, and they prove vastly more entertaining and instructive than anything the Fuhrer could have written.' Nigel Jones, The Daily Telegraph; 'This is an old-fashioned publication, but none the worse for that. Its miscellaneous nature makes it an excellent beside book, providing sophisticated entertainment as one slips into sleep. The notebooks have been edited by Richard Davenport-Hines with a meticulousness - or perhaps that should be meticulum - that would have pleased their author.' Adam Sisman, Literary Review; 'Riveting... the most intimate self-portrait we have of this singular man.' Geoffrey Wheatcroft, Spectator; 'Richard Davenport-Hines... edits [the journals] with a wit and scholarship worthy of his subject... the "unique view" that the journals do provide... is one of the author himself, and one worth having.' Michael Howard, TLS; '...with his own sharp, bright footnotes, by Richard Davenport-Hines, The Wartime Journals should quite simply join the great diaries... In the way of great diaries, The Wartime Journals call up the absurdity of detail.' Edward Pearce, Tribune; 'The book has been superbly edited by Richard Davenport-Hines, whose notes are models of both pithiness and omniscience [...] For all the occasional touches of juvenile aspiration and self-importance, this is an extraordinarily rich record of an unusually rich mind - one of the most interesting people in recent English intellectual life, caught at one of the most vital moments in English history.' Noel Malcolm, Standpoint; 'the publishers IB Tauris did a great service to book-lovers by issuing Hugh Trevor-Roper's Wartime Journals in this handsome paperback earlier this year... These journals are not diaries. Instead, they're a sequence of highly-polished entries...They contain some extraordinary pen-portraits... One of the reasons this book is such a delight is that you're in the hands of a true scholar and literary sophisticate in the person of the editor, Richard Davenport-Hines... His professionalism and sheer stylishness are everywhere evident... His notes are incredibly thorough, and his Introduction is the best thing in the book.' Bradley Winterton, Taipei Times;