There’s an idea behind this book which I sympathise with, and that’s the way people too often accept myths about history for truth. The present uses the past to reflect its own ideologies and sensibilities: myths have their uses. Sweet suggests that the purpose of widely-accepted notions such as ‘the Victorians were dreadful prudes’ is “to satisfy our sense of ourselves as liberated Moderns”. There are other motives for devising historical myths, of course, such as the use of certain interpretations of history to uphold a particular political system or ideology. In the same way, how we view history is affected by stereotypes that linger in the present. However, if we are to base our opinions on the rock of what we know rather than the quicksand of what we think we know, it’s important to separate myth from reality. So I’m all for challenging historical myths and the stereotypes that often underpin them. It’s disappointing, then, to discover that the author draws the line at challen...

When I was in London a few days ago I spent an enjoyable afternoon strolling around the Houses of Parliament and viewing the statues of suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst, leader of the Women’s Social and Political Union, and suffragist Millicent Garratt Fawcett, leader of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies. Standing in the middle of Parliament Square on a cold, gloomy day with traffic going about its business, tourists going about their pleasure, and office workers going about their lunch, it was sobering to think of all the dreadful scenes that had taken place there just over a hundred years ago. When I shut my eyes many horribly familiar images rose up in my imagination. Of women attempting to deliver petitions to the House of Commons being set upon by police and thugs, kicked, knocked to the ground, and in some cases sexually assaulted. Of women having their clothes torn and their hair pulled out. Of women arrested, including Mrs Pankhurst herself. A suffra...