The humble, indispensable index

Philip Hensher in The Independent discusses the enjoyment to be had from indexes. It has to be said that few of the history books I read have the opportunities to be as gloriously bitchy as the biographies he mentions, but it is true that the index, besides being a useful tool for extracting information you need from a book when you don't have time or inclination to read the whole thing, is often a quick way to get a feel of a writer's priorities (and blind spots). A good index should tell you a lot about both a book and its writer. And an academic book without an index is surely a contradiction in terms.