SOURCE: “Barbarians at the Gate,” in New Statesman, May 20, 1977, pp. 677–78.

In the following review of Enemies of Society, Ascherson commends Johnson's intelligence and scathing humor, but disagrees with his overriding notions about civilization and morality.

Outside the headmaster's study, winding from the green baize door to halfway up the stairs, waits the queue. Whacks and screams suggest that Teilhard de Chardin is having a rough time in there. Paul Tillich and Marcuse stuff paper into their trouser-seats; Fanon and Schoenberg begin to snivel; Sartre, Marx, Freud, Diocletian, Meinhof, Laing, Lévi-Strauss, Cicero, the rulers of independent Africa, Francis Bacon, Edmund Leach … the Rev. Paul Johnson BA is going to root this thing out before it spreads any further. ‘You'll think twice before undermining civilisation again. Touch your toes …’

This book [Enemies of Society] is cross. But it is adventurous, learned and vehemently funny. Paul Johnson is one of...