Lead book review
Handel’s greatest hits — the glorious London decades
England has been home to three great composer-entrepreneurs since 1700: Benjamin Britten in the 20th century; Arthur Sullivan in the…
John Law: the Scottish gambler who rescued France from bankruptcy
John Law was by any standards a quite remarkable man. At the apogee of his power in 1720, he was…
The scourge of Christian missionaries in British-Indian history
Objectivity seems to be difficult for historians writing about Britain’s long and complicated relationship with India, and this makes the…
How scary is dairy?
For tens of thousands of years, humans have been domesticating other mammals — cows, buffaloes, sheep, goats, camels, llamas, donkeys,…
Ménage à quatre with Robert Graves
‘I have a very poor opinion of other people’s opinion of me — though I am fairly happy in my…
The perfect guide to a book everyone should read
‘The Divine Comedy is a book that everyone ought to read,’ according to Jorge Luis Borges, and every Italian has…
![Photograph of an almshouse waif by Lewis W. Hine, entitled ‘Little Orphan Annie in a Pittsburg Institution’ (1909) [Bridgeman Art Library]](https://www.spectator.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/bookslead4aug.jpg?w=410&h=275&crop=1)
‘I am not a number’: the callous treatment of orphans
Orphans are everywhere in literature — Jane Eyre, Heathcliff, Oliver Twist, Daniel Deronda, and onwards to the present day. They…
Amazing mazes: the pleasures of getting lost in the labyrinth
When Boris Johnson resigned recently he automatically gave up his right to use Chevening House in Kent, bequeathed by the…
Adam Smith analysed human behaviour, not economics, says Simon Heffer
Jesse Norman is one of only three or four genuine intellectuals on the Tory benches in the House of Commons.…
Portugal’s entrancing capital has always looked to the sea
Paris, Venice, Montevideo, Cape Town, Hobart. There are cities, like fado, that pluck at the gut. In my personal half…
Historian David Edgerton says the ‘British nation’ lasted from 1945 to 1979, the miner’s strike its death knell
It seems somehow symptomatic of David Edgerton’s style as a historian, of a certain wilful singularity, that even his book’s…
The spying game: when has espionage changed the course of history?
Espionage, Christopher Andrew reminds us, is the second oldest profession. The two converged when Moses’s successor Joshua sent a couple…
The short step from good manners to lofty imperialism
In the gap between what we feel ourselves to be and what we imagine we might in different circumstances become,…
It took a long time for de Gaulle to become ‘de Gaulle’
When General de Gaulle published the first volume of his war memoirs in 1954, he signed only four presentation copies:…
Was the Indian Rope Trick a myth?
The Paul Daniels Magic Show, on a Saturday afternoon in the early 1980s, was a straightforward enough proposition. A wand,…
The Empty Quarter is a great refuge for lonely hearts
Here’s a treat for desert lovers. William Atkins, author of the widely admired book The Moor, has wisely exchanged the…
The sacred chickens that ruled the roost in ancient Rome
Even the most cursory glance at the classical period reveals the central place that birds played in the religious and…
The wilder shores of excess in William Trevor’s fiction
A very prolific and long-standing writer of short stories reveals himself. William Trevor, who died in 2016, owned up to…
Might LSD be good for you?
When Peregrine Worsthorne was on Desert Island Discs in 1992, he chose as his luxury item a lifetime supply of…
Enduring life under Chairman Mao
Rao Pingru is 94, and a born storyteller. His gripping graphic narrative weaves in and out of the violent, disruptive…
The most bizarre museum heist ever
They don’t look like a natural pair. First there’s the author, Kirk Wallace Johnson, a hero of America’s war in…
Texas: the myriad contradictions of the Lone Star state
The subtitle of Lawrence Wright’s splendid God Save Texas (‘A Journey into the Future of America’) would be alarming if…
The codes and codswallop surrounding Leonardo da Vinci
‘If you look at walls soiled with a variety of stains or at stones with variegated patterns,’ Leonardo da Vinci…
1968 and the summer of our discontent
’68 will do as shorthand. Most of ’68, as it were, didn’t happen in 1968. It was, at most, the…
How Christianity saw off its rivals and became the universal church
In the reign of Constantine, whose conversion to Christianity in AD 310 set the entire Roman world on a course…
