Henry Kissinger, Owen Harries, Samuel Huntington, March 1998

History’s best beginning for a printed obituary was the beginning which Clive James used for his New Yorker obit of Princess Diana. It consisted simply of the word ‘No.’ And as it happens, that very word was my own immediate, instinctive response when former Quadrant editor Lee Shrubb (long since retired but still Sydney-based) told me on the phone that her fellow Sydney resident Owen Harries had died.  

No.