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The school holidays in the final furlong and the next new phase and term in clear sight. This is when…
Results
The school holidays in the final furlong and the next new phase and term in clear sight. This is when…
Drink, drugs and dressing-up: behind the scenes of the fashion industry
Philip Hensher explores a dangerously intoxicating world, and discovers just how quickly famous designers can become an irrelevance
The low sculduggery of high Victorian finance
The whole idea of capitalism, according to Enlightenment philosophers, was that it created a positive spiral of moral behaviour. ‘Concern…
Cabinet of curiosity: we do not even know for sure the maker of the Sixtus Cabinet at Stourhead
Italian cabinets and tables decorated with inlaid semi-precious stones known as ‘pietre dure’ were a ‘must-have’ for English milords returning…
From prince to pauper: a dramatic overview of Britain on 18 June 1815
Of all the big battalions of books marking the bicentenary of the battle of Waterloo that have come my way,…
Tony Judt: a man of paradox who made perfect sense
Tony Judt was not only a great historian, he was also a great essayist and commentator on international politics. Few…
The fallen idol: seeing Putin in a new light
The way to think about Russia, Bill Browder told me in Moscow in 2004, using a comparison he recycles in…
From classical to post-modern: a beginner’s guide
My career at school and after was greatly enhanced by a series of books called The Bluffer’s Guide to….These gave…
Good time girls: Italian women prefer sunglasses to babies, according to Nicholas Farrell
Like so many Britons who chased the dream and woke up in Italy I have contemplated writing a book about…
The greatest American Arctic disaster
In the course of the 19th century, various flotillas of expeditions hastened to the polar regions in little wooden ships…
Powers of persuasion: how Churchill brought America on side
In time for the 50th anniversary of Churchill’s death comes this pacy novel about his attempts to persuade the Americans…
Approaching America
Our pilot on the Delaware offers to show you his laptop. These are the buoys, he says; I know exactly…
Books and arts
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Approaching America
Our pilot on the Delaware offers to show you his laptop. These are the buoys, he says; I know exactly…
Approaching America
Our pilot on the Delaware offers to show you his laptop. These are the buoys, he says; I know exactly…
Tom Eliot — a very practical cat. Did T.S. Eliot simply recycle every personal experience into poetry?
T.S. Eliot may have put much of his early life into his poetry, says Daniel Swift, but The Waste Land remains a marvellous mystery that defies explanation
The King Kong of the thriller: the phenomenal output of Edgar Wallace, once the world’s most popular author
At the time of his death in 1932 Edgar Wallace had published some 200 books, 25 plays, 45 collections of…
Persuasions
Persuasions of shattered glass, fifty rounds bringing carnage, injury, terror, bereavement. What can preserve the State? Citizen A calls an…
The Nightwatches of Bonaventura: a masterpiece of German Gothic
In the early 19th century, the Romantic movement was in full swing across Europe. You could probably date its birth…
The merry monarch and his mistresses; was sex for Charles II a dangerous distraction?
In a tone of breezy bravado in keeping with their concept of their subject’s character, Don Jordan and Michael Walsh…
A state of terror: Islamic State longs to be left alone to establish its blood-stained utopia
The Sykes-Picot agreement will be 100 years old next year, but there will be no congratulatory telegrams winging their way…
Process of elimination: the horrors of Ravensbrück revealed
Concentration camps in Nazi Germany were originally set up in 1933 to terrorise Hitler’s political enemies; as war drew near,…
Muriel and Nellie: two radical Christians build Jerusalem in London’s East End
This is the tale of Muriel Lester, once famous pacifist and social reformer, and Nellie Dowell, her invisible friend. Nellie…
Books and arts
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