In 1928 George Bernard Shaw’s sister-in-law modestly asked him for ‘a few ideas on socialism’. History does not relate how pleased she was with Shaw’s immodest response, the 200,000-word Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism. And that, as it happens, is John Vincent’s principal argument in a nutshell, for he believes that history depends on written evidence and that without evidence there can be no history. By not registering her feelings on paper, Shaw’s sister-in-law failed, on this point, to contribute to history.

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