“This lecture is forbidden by radical opinion,” shouts one protestor into a hijacked microphone, as the mob fills the lecture theatre. “Forbidden! Forbidden!” answers the crowd, determined to prevent the Jewish geneticist Professor Mangel from delivering a talk titled “Do Rats Have ‘Families’?” It could have happened last week — but this scene is taken from the climax of Malcolm Bradbury’s satirical campus novel The History Man, published 50 years ago this year.| UnHerd
Asa Briggs’s energy fuelled him to write more than fifty books, including five formidable volumes on the history of broadcasting. At the zenith of his fame he was one of the best-known historians of his generation, his name on a cover a guarantee of substantial sales. From humble beginnings in the| HarperCollins Publishers UK