Reviews Archive

Neo-impressionist painting of women sat at a table in july

Review

Helene Kröller-Müller’s radical eye

Visionary German collector, Helene Kröller-Müller, championed Van Gogh and the Neo-Impressionists long before the art world recognised their worth.

Alexandra Wilson September 18, 2025

Ottoman manuscript showing the Ottoman army under the command of Suleiman the Magnificent at the Battle of Mohács (1526).

Review

The Ottomans, from dawn to decadence

The Ottomans' lightning conquests reshaped the geopolitical landscape of Europe and the Middle East, before the expense of governing a vast territorial empire began to take its tol..

Nicholas Morton September 17, 2025

picture of king harold in battle fighting in the battle of hastings

Review

1066 and all the clichés

The epic drama of the Norman Conquest has been adapted into a half-baked tale, light on history and heavy on tropes.

Helen Carr September 17, 2025

An early 20th-century postcard showing Sherif Pasha Street (now Salah Salem) in Alexandria, Egypt.

Review

Cavafy, poet of a vanished world

The Alexandrian Greek poet Constantine P. Cavafy willed himself and his poetry upon the world’s imagination. A man of striking contradictions, he was a prophet of the perils and pr..

Margarita Mathiopoulos September 12, 2025

Review

The fall and rise of Central Europe

The cosmopolitan world of Central Europe was destroyed by the 20th-century tragedies of total war and Communism. Yet as an idea, it lived on, providing a powerful rallying point fo..

Morten Høi Jensen September 9, 2025

A craftsman is seen etching and embossing a ceremonial sword.

Review

The lost world of crafts

Traditional craft industries, now vanished or endangered, used to play a vital role in cementing communities. Why might they not do so again?

Michael Prodger September 8, 2025

A still from a 1984 film directed by Shūji Terayama.

Review

Inside Japan’s avant-garde

A creative tension between the trauma of war and the allure of Americanised, postwar life lay at the heart of the Japanese avant-garde. Its artists' compelling work continues to sh..

Christopher Harding September 5, 2025

The House of Commons (c. 1710), in the former St. Stephen's Chapel in the Old Palace of Westminster. Oil on canvas by Peter Tillemans.

Review

The invention of party politics

At the turn of the 18th century, English political life was suffused with sectarian strife. This is a story of partisanship with a peculiarly contemporary resonance.

Max Skjönsberg September 4, 2025

Review

When England began

Despite his strong claim to have been the first king of a united England, the enigmatic Æthelstan has long been neglected by historians. His remarkable achievements are finally bei..

Samuel Rubinstein September 3, 2025