Auberon Waugh has his own place in British letters. Certainly his work shows the influence of his father, Evelyn Waugh (however much he tends to deny it and however much he avoids discussing the similarities in their work), for they lived in the same world and have drawn from similar sources. Both are satirists, but Auberon Waugh has chosen to concentrate his efforts on nonfiction as well as the novel.

In a time when news headlines are stranger than fiction, when the novelist's fantasies cannot keep up with the statements of presumably responsible world leaders, when the daily television report is a kaleidoscope of horror, inhumanity, and every form of arbitrariness, the satirist need hardly do more than report actual statements and events. Thus (aside from the financial need to support a family), Auberon Waugh has in the past decade turned to nonfiction. It gives him the opportunity...