On the Spot: Matthew Sweet
‘What’s the most important lesson history has taught me? It’s not about you.’
Why are you a historian of the Victorian era?
I’m more a journalist who loves archives, but I became a Victorianist in 1989 after an epiphanic moment involving a paper knife and the Bodleian’s copy of Wilkie Collins’ Basil. My last book was about Vietnam deserters and the CIA. Like Snow White, I drifted.
What’s the most important lesson history has taught you?
It’s not about you.
Which book has had the greatest influence on you?
Kevin Brownlow’s The Parade’s Gone By.
What book in your field should everyone read?
If I’m a Victorianist, then Elaine Showalter’s The Female Malady. On CIA matters, Karen M. Paget’s Patriotic Betrayal. On film, Brownlow.
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