Promises to Keep: Thoughts in Old Age

The outstanding quality of Richard Hoggart's new book is its charm. In the style of Montaigne, Hoggart looks back over his years and pinpoints those human qualities which have come to mean most to him and which he has appreciated in others. Part of this man's charm derives from the fact that like most truly great men he is also extremely self—effacing. Literacy and the use of language remain an abiding concern of Professor Hoggart but he also analyses in these pages the nature of human cour...