Written in History: Letters that Changed the World
By Simon Sebag-Montefiore,
Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 272pp, £14.99/$20
A title such as this places a certain responsibility on the shoulders of the selector – he has made himself the arbiter of letters of real significance down the centuries, which will necessarily be a small group. In practice, Sebag-Montefiore has been idiosyncratic in his selection, following his own interests as a historian of Russia, including famous missives that could hardly be ignored as well as some curious specimens that have slender justification for their inclusion.
