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Roberta Corvi’s An Introduction to the Thought of Karl Popper (Routledge,
£12.99, ISBN 0 415 12957 5) was apparently approved by its subject prior
to publication. The reader will hardly be surprised by this, for the book could
have been written by the philosopher himself in the third person, such is its
disinclination to criticism. It is a servant to the great man’s ideas, which is,
of course, its point, offering a synopsis of Popper and his philosophy for those
without the time or inclination to read him first hand. Yet it is not as
entertaining as the real thing and offers little more. Popper fans in search of
newly published material from their hero would do better to read The Lesson of
this Century (Routledge, £16.95, ISBN 0 415 12958 3), a clutch of
translated interviews edited by Giancarlo Bosetti from this decade in which
Popper translated his philosophy into politics—the duty, he always
insisted, of every philosopher.