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...