This is an extraordinary book which, under the guise of objectively examining a rivalry between two architectural historians, launches a sustained attack on the work and reputation of one of them. Timothy Mowl's sympathies, it soon becomes apparent, lie with John Betjeman who, if he enjoys much of a posthumous reputation, owes this to his jocular verses and memories of his television appearances in which he took on the role of Britain's unofficial eccentric.
Nikolaus Pevsner, on the other hand, continues to be admired, although not necessarily by Mowl, for his scholarly research which produced the postwar Buildings of England series. If not written in the most titillating prose, these volumes continue to be an invaluable resource for anyone seeking architectural guidance when travelling around the country.
Mowl, however, judges both Pevsner and his work harshly, criticising the German emigre for the tiniest of factual errors, the equivalent of which in Betjeman he finds quite charming. The latter was an amateur who dabbled in architectural writing, was simultaneously partisan and inconsistent in his views and often openly hostile towards the man he perceived as his rival. Pevsner, however, could be accused, at worst, of being rather loftily indifferent to Betjeman.
Having had to flee from Germany in the 1930s because of his Jewish parentage, he not only taught himself excellent English but also more about English architecture and design than the majority of the country's natives were ever likely to know.
But Mowl will have no truck with the brilliance of this outsider. He accuses him of being a "parlour pink" who, after the second World War, contributed through his prestige and tacit approval "to some of the dreariest housing of twentieth-century Britain". Betjeman, meanwhile, he proposes for sanctity, were the Church of England ever to introduce such a process. Timothy Mowl is an excellent scholar himself, and he has clearly read the work of both authors thoroughly.
But his prejudices are so nakedly, if unconsciously, exposed that eventually Stylistic Cold Wars has no value other than as a piece of nonsensical entertainment.
Robert O'Byrne is an Irish Times journalist. His book After a Fashion has just been published by Town House