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![](https://reviews.history.ac.uk/sites/reviews/files/styles/thumbnail/public/images/beerd_0.jpg?itok=giSst5HJ)
Review Date:
1 Dec 2005'It is not necessary to be dull to write about history', Ged Martin remarks (p. 8). One suspects that many historians would add, 'but it helps'. This book is a wonderful antidote to that excessive seriousness. The style is crisp, paradox and aphorism abound – 'historians love paradoxes', Martin says (p.