Reviews Archive

The slave market at Zabid in Yemen by Yahya ibn Mahmud al-Wasiti (1237 CE).

Review

Slavery in the shadow of the Qur’an

From the legal pronouncements of Ahmad Baba to the devşirme elite of the Ottoman Empire, Justin Marozzi’s sweeping history of slavery in the Islamic world reveals a tangled web of ..

Fitzroy Morrissey July 31, 2025

Review

Suleyman the Magnificent’s secret history

For all the scholarship contained in the second volume of his Ottoman trilogy, Christopher de Bellaigue’s modish style of writing leaves much to be desired.

Christopher Silvester July 29, 2025

oil painting of woman sat down on bed reading looking lonely

Review

The myth of the solitary genius

Guy Stagg set out to understand the redemptive power of retreat by exploring the solitary lives of Ludwig Wittgenstein, David Jones and Simone Weil. He does not like what he discov..

Katherine Harvey July 28, 2025

A sculpture at the Hill of Witches, Lithuania.

Review

The curious death of pagan Europe

In Lithuania – Europe’s last pagan kingdom – the death of the old religions was neither swift nor absolute. They lingered on, revealing a slower, stranger story of Christian conver..

Luka Ivan Jukic July 25, 2025

Hubert de Burgh taken from sanctuary at Boisars, France in 1232.

Review

When sanctuary looks like retreat

Marina Warner’s idea of sanctuary in storytelling is unable to meet her book's ambitions.

Mathew Lyons July 22, 2025

A still from The Constant Wife at the RSC. Based on the play by W Somerset Maugham.

Review

The Constant Wife – a sparkling revival of Somerset Maugham’s masterpiece

A creative re-casting of W. Somerset Maugham's delightful comic drama adds an abundance of clever and amusing innovations.

Alexandra Wilson July 16, 2025

Review

Lawrence Durrell’s lost Mediterranean

The lavish, contested prose of Lawrence Durrell preserves an Eastern Mediterranean that has long disappeared – if it ever existed at all.

Guy Stagg July 14, 2025

Botticelli's painting of a scene from the Decameron.

Review

Boccaccio’s boundless energies

Giovanni Boccaccio, author of the 'Decameron' and an aficionado of Dante Alighieri, was a prolific writer in the Tuscan vernacular who made his enduring mark on the Early Renaissan..

Nicholas Morton July 10, 2025

An installation at an exhibition devoted to Charles Frederick Worth at Petit Palais, Paris.

Review

The house that Worth built

The first exhibition devoted to the House of Worth tells the unusual story of an English interloper, Charles Frederick Worth, whose name became a byword for Parisian luxury and ref..

Muriel Zagha July 7, 2025