SOURCE: “Intellectual Dinosaur,” in New Statesman & Society, September 20, 1991, pp. 44, 46.

In the following review of The Birth of the Modern, Howe objects to Johnson's misleading and narrow Eurocentric perspective and his reliance on outmoded sources.

This vast, often entertaining book [The Birth of the Modern] carries an utterly fraudulent title and preface. Paul Johnson proclaims that it “deals with the whole world and has no one angle of vision … seeking to portray international society in its totality.” It does nothing of the sort. It is a narrative of political, cultural, social and, to a very limited extent, economic changes in the world of the north Atlantic and western Europe, centred overwhelmingly on Britain.

Almost exactly half the text deals with British events and personalities, not including material on British travellers, soldiers, sailors and conquerors overseas; and more than half the remainder with the US and, to a lesser degree...