Reviews

Significant works reviewed by Engelsberg Ideas writers.

'The Shepherd's Dream' by Henry Fuseli.
Review

The art of sleep

The world of sleep has long fascinated poets, writers, and artists, both as a realm of the imagination and a mysterious source of peril.

Muriel Zagha March 19, 2026
One of the last photographs of Adolf Hitler.
Review

Hitler’s long afterlife

Even in death, the Führer’s fate continued to provoke uncertainty and fascination for decades.

Tim Bouverie March 17, 2026
Giovanni Paolo Panini's 'Roman Ruin With A Prophet' (1751).
Review

The West is an idea

There has never been a single concept of the West, which helps explain its potency as an idea.

Jeremy Jennings March 12, 2026
Crowds on the streets of Tehran celebrate the departure of the Shah in January 1979.
Review

How the United States lost Iran

Behind Washington’s failure to predict the Iranian Revolution of 1979 lay a long history of hubris, strategic miscalculations and delusional thinking.

Sergey Radchenko March 9, 2026
Hannah (or Anna) Trapnel Prophetess, member of the Fifth Monarchy
Review

The god-fearing women of the 17th century

Amid civil war and regicide, a group of women claimed the right to speak directly for God, asserting spiritual authority in a society that denied them a voice.

Katherine Harvey March 4, 2026
The seven plaques on the Holocaust Memorial wall at Campo de Gheto Novo in Venice.
Review

Venice and the fate of the Jews

The history of the Venetian Ghetto complicates the notion that Jewish history is merely a chronicle of suffering.

Samuel Rubinstein March 3, 2026
Gerhard Richter's 'Herr Uecker'.
Review

Gerhard Richter, between past and present

The work of the 94-year-old German artist, now retired, tests the limits of memory and the image itself.

Jared Marcel Pollen February 27, 2026
A French propaganda poster during the First World War.
Review

The strange death of the nation state

Nation states were never a natural or immutable part of our world order, and their decline and displacement through technological transformation may ultimately be a positive story.

Bryan Appleyard February 26, 2026
A scene in a Carthusian monastery painted by Franciszek Ksawery Lampi.
Review

The visions of Harald Voetmann

Rich, brutal, and darkly funny, the Danish novelist's harrowing trilogy concludes with a portrait of the 11th-century scholar Othlo of St Emmeram, exploring humanity’s efforts to d..

Daniel Skeffington February 19, 2026

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