Collects more than thirty previously published essays on a diverse range of topics, including food habits, art, politics, history, and travel.;Travelling. Sail away -- The unloved American -- Amsterdam -- Washington DC -- Brazil -- Comedy meets catastrophe -- Testing democracy. 9/11 -- The dead and the guilty -- The civil war in the USA -- Katrina and George Bush -- The British election, 2005 -- Virtual annihilation -- Talking and listening. TBM and John -- Isaiah Berlin -- J.H. Plumb -- Rescuing Churchill -- Churchill as orator -- The fate of eloquence in the age of the Osbournes -- Performing. Richard II -- Henry IV, part II -- Martin Scorcese -- Charlotte Rampling -- Clio at the multiplex -- True confessions of a history boy -- Picturing. The matter of the unripe nectarine -- Dutch courage -- Rubens -- Turner and the drama of history -- James Ensor at MoMa -- Rembrandt's ghost -- Anselm Kiefer (1) -- In Mesopotamia : Anselm Kiefer (2) -- John Virtue -- Avedon : Power -- Cooking and eating. Cool as ice -- Sauce of controversy -- Cheese soufflé -- Simmer of love -- My mother's kitchen -- Mouthing off -- Remembering. Omaha Beach -- Gothic language : Carlyle, Ruskin and the morality of exuberance -- A history of Britain : a response -- The Monte Lupo story -- No walnuts, no enlightenment -- Abolishing the slave trade in Britain and America -- A league of its own. Red October.