There is something oddly Jesuitical about this arresting, if not quite thrilling, collection of essays in defence of Modernism (and so modernity). It may be Krishna that Amit Chaudhuri champions, rather than Catholic doctrine, or at least Krishna’s delight in ‘the infinitely tantalizing play, chicanery, and light and shade of the created universe’ (music to a Modernist’s ears, even if our essayist is an atheist), but all the same, I smell casuistry in the service of an orthodoxy. It makes at times for compelling reading.