Among this week's contributors

John Burnett is Professor of Social History at Brunel University.

His books include Idle Hands: The experience of unemployment, 1790-1990, 1994. Lesley Chamberlain's most recent book is In a Place like That, 1998. Hal G. P. Colebatch's books include Claude Bernales: The magnificent miner, 1997. Peter Holland's most recent book is English Shakespeares: Shakespeare on the English stage in the 1990s, 1997. Derek Hopwood is Director of the Middle East Centre, St Anthony's College, Oxford. John McLaren is the author of Writing in Hope and Fear: Literature as politics in postwar Australia, 1996. Les Murray's new book, Fredy Neptune will be published next month. Joyce Carol Oates is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor in the Humanities at Princeton University. Adam Roberts is Montague Burton Professor of International Relations at the University of Oxford. N. A. M. Rodger is Anderson Research Fellow of the National Maritime Museum. The first volume of his Naval History of Britain, The Safeguard of the Sea, was published in 1997. Michael Smith is the author of The Moral Problem, 1994. Robert Tombs's most recent book is France 1814-1914, 1996. E. S. Turner was a contributor to Punch for fifty years.