In this fascinating and highly readablr book Hugh David argues that the English gentleman was not so much born as made; groomed by Eton, Harrow and other public schools for a precise role in the Empire. Starting at the end of the nineteenth century, he follows this 'honourable schoolboy'through the headiness of the Edwardian summer, the sacrifice of two world wars, the uncertainties of the fifties and sixties, into today's meritocratic, 'clasless' society.