Reviews Archive

Review

The Holy Alliance was doomed to be brittle

The history of the 19th-century Holy Alliance between the monarchist great powers of Austria, Prussia and Russia shows how hard it is to maintain complex federal systems in a world..

Michael Ledger-Lomas June 24, 2024

Review

Six Tudor lives in their own right

Katherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Katherine Howard and Katherine Parr were distinct and individual women, each compelling in their own right, and not ..

Mathew Lyons June 20, 2024

The Summit of Dodd Fell overlooking Bassenthwaite in the Lake District.

Review

Walk on the wild side

Britain’s countryside is in a bad way, even by the standards of fraught global ecologies, but sentimental and spiritual interpretations of its plight detract from the urgency.

Richard Smyth June 18, 2024

Review

James Salter, last of the Americans

Some writers — George Eliot, Thomas Mann, Saul Bellow — are thinkers, but James Salter was a doer who loved danger. The urgent quality of his prose was a function of the intensity ..

Daniel Johnson June 14, 2024

Hamada Shōji demonstrating his craft at Scripps College, California, 1953.

Review

Japan’s genius for crafts

The early 20th Century 'Mingei' movement, inspired by Yanagi Sōetsu, the celebrated philosopher and art critic, set the tone for contemporary Japan's pride in craftsmanship and des..

Christopher Harding June 13, 2024

Review

Charles Dickens’ creature comforts

Charles Dickens' fondness for animals animates his fiction.

Malcolm Forbes June 12, 2024

Engraving of Venice from the 15th century.

Review

Venice, the serenely unclassifiable city

Venice is the product of such a complex blend of factors, forces and circumstances, it can no longer serve as an exemplar for anything other than itself.

Nicholas Morton June 5, 2024

Australian-born writer Shirley Hazzard in Rome.

Review

Shirley Hazzard’s grace abounding

A new edition of the intimate, decades-long correspondence between Australian writers Shirley Hazzard and Elizabeth Harrower illustrates a deep shared concern with human connection..

Oliver Soden June 4, 2024

Portrait of the French composer, Olivier Messiaen.

Review

Messiaen’s many mutations

Turangalîla-Symphonie, Messiaen’s 80-minute orchestral spectacular, whose title comes from the Sanskrit word for love, is a wild mélange, and no less loveable for it.

Benjamin Poore June 4, 2024