Lead book review
The plunder of the seas
David Profumo wonders whether newly created marine reserves can really reverse decades of devastation
Will the world forsake him?
Cracks are beginning to appear in T.S. Eliot’s once unassailable reputation, says Philip Hensher
Ballet’s lonely pioneer
Bronislava Nijinska was constantly undermined in her lifetime – most cruelly by her brother, says Sarah Crompton
An international civil war
Sara Wheeler describes the appalling brutality of the Russian Revolution and its far-reaching aftermath
Dreaming of Jerusalem
Justin Marozzi on the troubled history of a small, much-coveted country
A true bohemian
Jean Rhys lived a vagabond life – but she wrote about gloom and squalor with luminous purity and a poet’s care, says Lucasta Miller
More fevered speculation
Royal gossip is largely invented, says Philip Hensher – but Tina Brown repeats it regardless
Muse and monster
Nancy Cunard’s defiance of convention began early, fuelled by bitter resentment towards her mother, says Jane Ridley
A pure original
John Donne sounds like nobody else, and his poems invite us to feel that we might know him, says Daniel Swift
Dogged by disaster
Norman Scott’s long-anticipated memoir reveals the British Establishment at its worst, says Roger Lewis
In love and war
As Europe descended into chaos, the middle-aged Picasso remained as bullish as ever, says Craig Raine
An accidental hero
Ferdinand Magellan’s fame was largely undeserved. Horatio Clare sees the explorer cut down to size
Dons and rebels
Paula Byrne describes life at Oxford University in its eccentric heyday
From the Gauls to the Gilets Jaunes
Philip Hensher is enthralled by Graham Robb’s evocative new history of France
The caring doctress
Mary Seacole may not have qualified as a nurse in the modern sense, but British troops benefited greatly from her healing skills, says Andrew Lycett
Truly magnificent
Suleiman I richly deserved his epithet, as this vivid account of his early years illustrates, says Jason Burke
‘The Rothschilds of the East’
David Abulafia admires the shrewdness, generosity and panache of the Sassoons over many generations
Force of nature
Philip Hensher describes how John Constable’s energy and imagination freed British art from the constraints of the past
Man and superman
The creation of a master race is an ancient idea which, thankfully, can never work, says Sam Leith
The heart of the matter
Kathleen Stock describes how four women undergraduates in 1940s Oxford challenged an arid, modish philosophy
Born tough
Elaine Showalter celebrates the grit and wisdom of Elizabeth Hardwick
Once upon a time, long, long ago
Philip Hensher explores the origins of fairy tales
The year of living dangerously
Atrocities, assassinations and spectacular accidents were just some of the horrors that marked 1922, says Richard Davenport-Hines
Selling the dream
Love her or loathe her, Enid Blyton and the safe, sunny world she cleverly marketed will remain a publishing phenomenon, says Sam Leith
The Bible retold
Robert Alter 18 December 2021 9:00 am
Robert Alter is both exasperated and beguiled by Roberto Calasso’s intellectual potpourri