The Making of a Bigot

It's 1914, and Cambridge pulses with youthful conviction. Eddy Oliver, a likeable young man in his final university days, throws himself into every cause that crosses his path with earnest, almost desperate enthusiasm. He canvasses for the National Service League, joins societies he barely understands, and moves through Cambridge's social scene with a openness that charms nearly everyone he meets. But something darker simmers beneath all that tolerance. Rose Macaulay, who would later become one of the twentieth century's most sharp-eyed satirists, traces with quiet precision how a man who begins with the best intentions gradually, almost imperceptibly, hardens into narrow-minded certainty. The title isn't a mistake or an inversion: this is literally the making of a bigot, and Macaulay renders it with a novelist's sympathy and a critic's detached alarm. The result is a disturbing, darkly funny period piece that asks uncomfortable questions about conviction, conformity, and the price of belonging.