Astonishing!

I SPENT a recent weekend in York, but failed to take a book with me to read.

I could not find anything I fancied in the bookshops, so I ended up buying the latest issue of History Today, which I formerly subscribed to but gave up because I found the writing rather shallow.

It proved generally quite interesting, but the most interesting thing to me was one of the answers given in the magazine's On The Spot section, where "we ask leading historians why their research matters, what history has taught them, and what we should be reading."

What interested me - astounded, would be a better word - was the answer given by Richard Butterwick-Pawlikowski, professor of Polish-Lithuanian history at University College London and historian of Warsaw's Polish History Museum, to the question: "Is there an important historical text you have not read?"

Astonishing content

His reply: "I've been meaning to read Tacitus' Histories for a long time."

I do not know what astounds me more - that a "leading historian" has not read Tacitus, or that a "leading historian" should publicly admit to having not read Tacticus.