Bryan Appleyard
Let Us Withdraw
Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals
By John Gray
Granta Books 246pp £12.99
It is often casually assumed that we have assimilated Charles Darwin. He established the mechanism of our relationship to the natural world and thereby completed the project that began with Copernicus – the displacement of humankind from its throne at the centre of creation. Darwin, Richard Dawkins has said, made it intellectually respectable to be an atheist.
Dawkins’s mistake, and that of all those who think that, post-Darwin, we have somehow suddenly grown up, is not to overestimate Darwin, but wildly to underestimate him. If all Darwin did was to underwrite atheism, then he achieved precisely nothing. For atheism is, in the words of John Gray, ‘a
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
It is a triumph @arthistorynews and my review @Lit_Review is here!
In just thirteen years, George Villiers rose from plain squire to become the only duke in England and the most powerful politician in the land. Does a new biography finally unravel the secrets of his success?
John Adamson investigates.
John Adamson - Love Island with Ruffs
John Adamson: Love Island with Ruffs - The Scapegoat: The Brilliant Brief Life of the Duke of Buckingham by Lucy Hughes-Hallett
literaryreview.co.uk
During the 1930s, Winston Churchill retired to Chartwell, his Tudor-style country house in Kent, where he plotted a return to power.
Richard Vinen asks whether it’s time to rename the decade long regarded as Churchill’s ‘wilderness years’.
Richard Vinen - Croquet & Conspiracy
Richard Vinen: Croquet & Conspiracy - Churchill’s Citadel: Chartwell and the Gatherings Before the Storm by Katherine Carter
literaryreview.co.uk