Gillian Evans is perhaps Cambridge’s greatest rabble-rouser: on any issue from corporate sponsorship to disabled access, she will speak out – nearly always against the establishment. Her crowning achievement came when, after years of legal struggle, she forced the University to recognise her claims to promotion, ending up as Professor of Medieval Theology and Intellectual History. She has now repaid the favour by writing the first apparently comprehensive history of this institution for several years.

The book has already had criticism from inside the University: Peter Linehan, Dean of St John’s, wrote a scathing review in the Times Literary Supplement, centring on the work’s alleged inaccuracies. Most of these, however, are too slight to trouble the general reader much (with the exception, perhaps, of the assertion that the Tripos is “so-called because it is taken over three years”, an odd fabrication); more worrying is the wild, uneven focus of the book.

Much of this New History seems aimed at those completely unfamiliar with Cambridge’s history: it explains early on that “Cambridge’s life is…an intellectual life”, tells us who the Apostles are more than once, and usually avoids referring to the monumental 1990s CUP history of the University. On the other hand, however, Prof. Evans dwells extensively on disputes over points of theology and University governance (intellectual property rights, anyone?) of no interest to the non-specialist.

This book, with its scatter-gun approach and lengthy quotation from literary sources such as Wordsworth and Francis Cornford, often seems more like an anthology than a coherent history. Yet the anthological approach only works if one has confidence in the anthologist’s judgment; here the author undermines herself, for repetition, spelling mistakes and personal bugbears fatally subvert the bigger picture. Sadly, it is hard to imagine an audience for this book.