Reviews Archive

Review

How Mitrokhin waged war from the archives

The KGB defector Vasili Mitrokhin's painstaking records of the Soviet Union's espionage activities offer insights that are just as relevant now as when they were first released 35 ..

Gill Bennett June 16, 2025

King Edward II is shown the severed head of Piers Gaveston in a 19th century illustration by James William Edmund Doyle.

Review

England’s time of troubles

Helen Carr’s compelling account of 14th-century England retells a familiar story with style. Yet it also provides a keen sense of the humanity of those who experienced this turbule..

Katherine Harvey June 12, 2025

A depiction of the 1903 Delhi Durbar in Le Petit Journal, a contemporary Parisian newspaper.

Review

How to save imperial history

Two popular histories of the British empire combine compelling storytelling with scholarly judgment, showing how historians can handle morally complex subjects with flair, nuance a..

Samuel Rubinstein June 9, 2025

Review

Cecil Beaton’s gardens of Eden

A new exhibition foregrounds the enduring role of flowers in the life of the photographer Cecil Beaton, and how they cross-pollinated their way into his creative imagination.

Saffron Swire June 2, 2025

The Chariot of Apollo by Odilon Redon (1840-1916).

Review

Poetry for the common reader

The American poet Dana Gioia writes for the public, a vanishingly rare trait.

Jaspreet Singh Boparai May 29, 2025

Review

A little history of privacy

The idea of privacy is a surprisingly modern notion, but one worth defending.

Katherine Harvey May 28, 2025

Wood engraving from a 19th-century edition of Charles Dickens' 'Our Mutual Friend,' first published in 1864-65.

Review

The times and tides of the wild River Thames

A fascinating exhibition at the London Museum Docklands shows vividly how the River Thames has always been a wild place at the heart of urban civilisation. Its tides are constantly..

Mathew Lyons May 27, 2025