“Things are what they mean,” says Ian Robinson, and in this book he looks at some of the meanings we are making of religious life, politics, journalism, love and sex … . The Survival of English has outlived a number of its examples including the New English Bible, the Heath-Wilson debate about “going into Europe”, Rees-Mogg’s Times; but The Times is still published, the debate is now about coming out of “Europe”, and we have the Revised English Bible and plenty of pornography. This book will not be found irrelevant by anyone concerned for judgement of the world we live in. It shows what can be done by a literary critic looking at language, and as such is in the tradition of Arnold and Leavis.

viii+246pp.  demy 8vo   paperback    978 0 907839 00 2    £12.00