While populists are known for their simplistic narratives, academics are assumed to embrace complexity. Yet a startling number of books claim to have found the key to understanding the movement’s rise in a single idea or study. In the week that Viktor Orbán’s fall has fuelled suggestions that history’s tide has turned again, Matthew Reisz leafs through various forthcoming tomes 

The former education secretary’s throwaway line arguably fired the starting gun for a new era in which scholarly expertise could be dismissed and social media sages exalted. Ten years after the notorious putdown, Patrick Jack caught up with Michael Gove and his critics on the legitimacy and legacy of his infamous barb