I enjoyed reading Peter Frankopan’s Diary for this issue, in which he admits that writing a book is a “very spiritual experience”. After his bestselling The Silk Roads, the Professor of Global History at Oxford University has now turned to an unfinished history of the environment with The Earth Transformed. With the passing of Catholic polymath Paul Johnson at the age of 94, it is refreshing to know that Catholic historians – particularly those who are also happy to identify as Catholic – still operate at the very highest level of the intellectual firmament.