In 1899, the editor of the Manchester Guardian asked a radical writer called John Hobson to report on the clashes between Britain and the Boers in South Africa. The reports that Hobson sent back were collected in a book published in 1900 entitled The War in South Africa: Its Causes and Effects. Two years later, drawing on his experiences, he published Imperialism: A Study. This book became very influential in left-wing circles and had a profound impact on Lenin, who drew on it for his Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism.

In 2011, Spokesman Books decided to republish Hobson’s Imperialism with a new foreword by Jeremy Corbyn. Anyone puzzled that Mr Corbyn has chosen to boycott the state dinner for Donald Trump while being content…