a great deal about style and the relevance of style to content. He was brought up in a republican tradition by a gentry family. That is very interesting, and he knew that. He had that capacity -- as most great speakers do -- to reach back into the language of the past in order to get you over the present and into the future. You cannot, as a great speaker, remain in the language of the present. GB Do you think that we are entering an era of increased (global) multilingualism, including in political rhetoric? JRS Yes. We went through 50 years of people believing that English was the only language that mattered. And, of course, that was particularly pushed by people who only spoke English. My experience going around the world all of the time is that it is absolutely true that English is the working language of international restaurants and hotels, and that there are a lot of people who have got 50 to 100 words; that is, enough to get by. That has nothing to do with actual rhetoric or actual language or conversation; it is just nuts and bolts. The story of the last 20 years is the gradual collapse of a belief in globalization, and the return of nationalism. We have seen, as a result, for instance, a very serious return of German in Germany. GB Have these new micro-technologies like Facebook, Google and Twitter facilitated this task of public conversation? JRS Hard to tell.