Jonathan Sumption
David Cannadine's Andrew Mellon (Allen Lane, £30) is a striking portrait of a great American misanthrope, which will be much enjoyed by those who persist in believing that money cannot buy happiness. I know that one ought not to compliment women in the presence of their husbands, but The Ordeal of Elizabeth March (HarperPress, £25) by Linda Colley (aka Mrs Cannadine) is a rather remarkable piece of archival detective work, the biography of a highly unconventional woman, propelled by misfortune and curiosity to travel in 18thcentury America, Africa and India. Her very existence was unknown before Colley made her a peg on which to hang some characteristically original reflections on the European diaspora of the 18th century. The second volume of E P. Locke's Edmund Burke (Clarendon Press, £190 for both volumes) completes a life of the great political theorist and orator which is unlikely to be superseded for a long time. We shall all learn to love the 18th century in the end.
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