Francis Wheen

Passing the Buck

Scapegoat: A History of Blaming Other People

By

Duckworth Overlook 208pp £14.99 order from our bookshop

Who could resist a book with such a subtitle? ‘I can see why they’ve asked you to review it,’ my other half said. She is a saintly figure who seldom if ever apportions blame, whereas my instinct when misfortune befalls me – lost socks, slipped discs, curdled mayonnaise – is to ask which blithering idiot was responsible, since it certainly wasn’t me.

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