From the Boer war to the Suez Crisis. From Kaiser Wilhelm and the Tsar to Khrushchev and Kennedy. From the footman and the hansom cab to the satellite and the supermarket. Harold Nicolson not only lived through an extraordinary period of history, he helped shape it. And he interpreted it for posterity in a series of remarkable books. Nicolson was a successful diplomat, politician, writer, and early media personality, yet he struggled with a nagging sense of failure. A homosexual at a time when exposure would have meant professional and social ruin, he was also one half of a strange,...