Reviews

Significant works reviewed by Engelsberg Ideas writers.

August Strindberg (1849-1912), the Swedish playwright and novelist painted by Edvard Munch in 1892.
Review

Strindberg’s study of a marriage

In 'The Dance of Death', August Strindberg imagines marriage as a sealed citadel of resentment and mutual destruction.

Malcolm Forbes February 18, 2026
A portrait of Charles III.
Review

Charles III’s philosophy of harmony

The monarch's philosophy of ‘harmony’ is a theistic vision rooted in Renaissance humanism and natural law, seeking to reconcile unity and diversity in an ordered cosmos.

Esmé Partridge February 17, 2026
Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder and Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2005
Review

How Germany misread Russia for three decades

Berlin's 30-year rapprochement with Russia is a cautionary tale of a country that became blind to the possibility of war – and is now paying the price.

Friedrich Asschenfeldt February 9, 2026
Ernst Kantorowicz seated at his desk, photographed and signed by Trude Fleischmann. Credit: Leo Baeck Institute, F 3891F.
Review

The transformation of Ernst Kantorowicz

The mutable German-Jewish historian was many things, but never dull.

Samuel Rubinstein February 6, 2026
A. Provost's 'Ball at the Opera de la rue Le Peletier in Paris around 1850'.
Review

How not to save opera

Treating culture as a battlefield is not the way to revitalise the world of opera.

Alexandra Wilson February 2, 2026
A confessional box in a Catholic cathedral.
Review

The allure of Catholic conversion

From Oscar Wilde to Muriel Spark, many British writers, artists and thinkers were drawn to the Catholic Church in the 20th century.

Guy Stagg January 29, 2026
'Nighthawks' by Edward Hopper.
Review

The power of night-thinking

Night-thinking reveals what our age of reason and certainty often overlooks: the power of the holistic, the intuitive, and the fragmentary.

Mateusz Strozynski January 26, 2026
James Nasmyth's steam hammer in his foundry near Manchester.
Review

Britain’s ruthless rise

Early-modern Britain’s capitalists, industrialists, and entrepreneurs combined ambition, ingenuity, and moral compromise to transform the economic world.

Samuel Rubinstein January 19, 2026
Portrait of Lady Margaret Beaufort from the Hall in St John's College, Cambridge. Credit: The Picture Art Collection
Review

The woman who made the Tudors

Margaret Beaufort, grandmother of Henry VIII, used her iron resolve to lay the foundations of Tudor England.

Katherine Harvey January 15, 2026

Download The Engelsberg
Ideas app

The world in your pocket. The app brings together – in one place – our essays, reviews, notebooks, and podcasts.

Download here