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Richard Hannay was finding life in London a little slow until a self-confessed dead man walked into his rooms.
It is May 1914, and Scotsman Richard Hannay has recently arrived in London from South Africa. Hannay is bored, so when a strange American calling himself Franklin P. Scudder slips past him into his flat, he looks forward to being entertained.
The study of history can distract us from pressing modern problems, but failing to study it is much worse.
John Buchan — novelist, wartime spymaster, and Governor-general of Canada — was also a historian in his own right, and the editor-in-chief of the multi-volume Nations of Today just after the Great War. In his introduction, Buchan picked up on George Santayana’s famous warning that ‘those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it’.
Sir Edward Leithen finds himself revising his opinion of the ‘detestable’ Koré Arabin.
Sir Edward Leithen, a forty-something lawyer of great distinction, ran across Corrie Arabin at a dance party given by his cousin-of-sorts, Mollie Nantley. ‘The girl is detestable’ was his first thought. But after Corrie — or more rightly Koré, a Greek name — turned to him for help in resolving a legal dispute with Athens, Ned’s feelings for the young woman began to change.
A good knowledge of history is essential if we are to understand words such as liberty and democracy.
In his introduction to a series of studies on world history, John Buchan (1875-1940) recalled that the great historian Lord Acton had uncovered as many as two hundred definitions of ‘liberty.’ A study of history, said Buchan, is the only way to untangle these various definitions — as it is for other catchwords of our own day such as ‘democracy’ and ‘populism.’
Jaikie has just graduated from Cambridge, and Alison wants to know what he has gained from his experience.
John ‘Jaikie’ Galt has taken Alison Westwater to dinner at a palatial London hotel to celebrate his graduation from St Mark’s College, Cambridge. Alison wants to know what Jaikie has learnt at University, and it isn’t anything found on a modular ‘Outcomes’ statement.
Two British spies look out over war-torn Belgrade, and find the inspiration they need to go on with their dangerous mission.
In John Buchan’s Great War novel ‘Greenmantle’, published in 1916, Richard Hannay and Peter Pienaar are spying for the Allies, making their way under cover through occupied lands to Constantinople. At Belgrade, recently captured by Austria-Hungary, they look on the devastation of war and their hearts go out to the brave people of Serbia.
Self-confessed Scottish Nationalist John Buchan warned Scots that there was more to democratic prosperity than having a Parliament.
In November 1932, John Buchan MP told the House of Commons that he supported Home Rule for Scotland in principle, but warned that no Parliament has a magic wand, and that an over-mighty and bitterly anti-English Parliament might leave Scots as much a race without a country as no Parliament at all.