Colin Evans: Great Feuds In History

By MARGIE THOMSON

Framing history as a series of personal disputes certainly makes it seem incredibly accessible and, well, human.

You want the Russian Revolution? "Joseph Stalin versus Leon Trotsky" seems much more palatable. The struggle for American civil rights? How about "J. Edgar Hoover versus Martin Luther King jnr" instead? Ten significant struggles spanning 500 years are presented here, in lively style.

In "The Duchess of Windsor versus the Queen Mother" Evans writes: "It is sobering to reflect that had it not been for Wallis, Britain might have had a Nazi sympathiser on the throne at the outbreak of World War II", and he quotes Noel Coward who said at the time of Edward's abdication: "A statue should be erected to Mrs Simpson in every town in England for the blessing she has bestowed upon the country."

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