It has been an intellectual spat of some savagery, so far largely confined to the refined pages of one of Britain's most respected literary magazines.
This weekend, however, it seems ever more likely that a court will have to adjudicate between the historian Niall Ferguson and writer Pankaj Mishra over Ferguson's claim that he had been accused of being a "racist".
Indeed, not since VS Naipaul and Paul Theroux fell out has there been a spat like this in the letters pages of a literary journal. A new exchange of correspondence in the current London Review of Books, triggered by Mishra's review of the Harvard professor's latest book Civilization, which Ferguson claims was "defamatory", is evidence that the row is becoming more intense.
In his letter Ferguson charges Mishra of being "in full and ignominious retreat", condemning both Mishra and the LRB for refusing to apologise. » | Peter Beaumont | Saturday, November 26, 2011
