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There are at least three Oxfords. One is, of course, the ancient and illustrious university; another is the city itself, from posh North Oxford to the outer council housing estates; the third is the once powerful industrial Oxford, based on the motor car manufacturing factories of Cowley, the Oxford of the Morris Minor, the Mini, the MG and many other classical automobile names.
There is however a fourth Oxford, a place of fantasy, of myth and legend, and some significant truths. This is the Oxford of'the dreaming spires and of'lost causes'. It is a staple, not merely of the English-speaking imagination, but also of that of much of the rest of the world It is a place associated with 'an accent', an annual boat race with the great rival university of Cambridge, eccentric dons, academic excellence a symphony by Haydn, a dark blue colour, snobbery, the nurturing'of national and, indeed, international leaders, a particular brand of marmalade and the production of brilliantly innovative ideas and theories -from religion to politics, science, literature, economics and the arts
The point is that the history of Oxford is so long, so complex so distinguished, so controversial that it is like a great quarry to be mined a treasure house to be plundered or a rambling repository of Englishness and Bntishness waiting to be used and abused. So, in the end Oxford becomes all things to all people. The trick is to sift the truth and reality from the whimsy and the hyperbole.

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This is what Richard Tames has so triumphantly achieved in this exceptionally thorough, beautifully written and comprehensive history As an Oxford man myself, it gives me great pleasure to say this of a Cambridge man. Perhaps I am also a touch relieved. Or are these comments simply another irritating example of the inevitable mock-rivalry, the wry in-jokery of the whole Oxbridge inter-relationship, and thus further proof of the cosy collusion at the heart of system?