Volume 30, Number 15 · October 13, 1983
Uncle Harry's Socks
By John Keegan
A Personal History
by A.J.P Taylor
Atheneum, 278 pp., $14.95
'Any friend or acquaintance who turns to the index,' writes A.J.P. Taylor in the preface to his autobiography, 'and does not find his name there can console himself that he was originally the subject of a passage which the lawyer condemned' (for libel, that is). He admits to seventy-six excisions, including all references to the second of his three wives. Americans who begin with the index may be struck by a stranger omission: that of any extended reference to their country. There are, in fact, twenty-seven references to 'America,' 'American,' or 'the United States' in the text, almost all trivial (though many, and flattering, to 'Russia' and 'the Russians'). They may consider this disregard a libel in itself. It is certainly deliberate. The author records with glee that he has seen the United States only once, when he glimpsed the hills of Maine from Canada during his one and only transatlantic visit, made in middle age.
Review, 2662 words
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