Hamilton – I disagree with him much more than I agree with him. This book is very much a book about a father and a son. The father is painted as the bad guy, and the son is the good guy, struggling to break free. I don’t accept that interpretation, or that framework of analysis. Nonetheless, Hamilton writes with a verve, an electricity, a passion, that’s rare among academic historians. As a researcher, he’s extraordinary.

I often hate-read the Daily Mail. It’s the worst of media and the worst of mankind distilled into one publication and in some ways it feels a moral duty to be familiar with it. Too often we all bolt ourselves into an echo chamber, which I think lacks courage, and can lead to a kind of intellectual conceitedness.

The Sun/Daily Mail/other various rags. It’s not that I go out of my way to read them, but back in England any fish and chip shop worth their salt delivers your food wrapped in newspaper. Tabloids are cheapest. You can’t help but catch the headlines.

This is an odd choice because I disagree with almost all his conclusions. He argues that the reign of Augustus sees the Roman élite finally dealing with the problems of the Greek culture that they love and the nasty Greeks they rule. He’s just wrong. They don’t. They carry on loving the culture and despising Greeks. I don’t agree with his methods. He doesn’t argue things. He just tells you stuff.