26 OCTOBER 1962, Page 10

World, Flesh and Devil

Mr. A. J. P. Taylor is a man of many parts, respected in some quarters for his scholarship just as much as he is marvelled at in others for his journalism, which is every bit as telling as Mr. John Gordon's or Mr. Robert Pitman's. I sympathise with him in his present dilemma, which reminds me in some ways of that of Mr. Mike (`Come Outside') Same, who found it difficult to reconcile the academic world with that of pop success. Mr. Sarne, sensible man, plumped in the end for his books. It would be a thousand pities if Mr. Taylor really did draw the conclusion that the groves of Academe would be well lost for the editorial page of the Sunday Express.