Reviews

Significant works reviewed by Engelsberg Ideas writers.

Rough seas around Orkney.
Review

Orkney: ‘the most dangerous place of all Christendom’

Orkney's sense of difference from the Scottish mainland is rooted in the distant past and the archipelago's turbulent modern history.

Katherine Harvey March 7, 2024
John Singer Sargent's Lady Agnew of Lochnaw.
Review

Sargent’s brush with fashion

A delightful exhibition of John Singer Sargent's portraits at Tate Britain is worth visiting, despite its faddish curatorial decision-making.

Alexandra Wilson March 5, 2024
Teddy Boys on a street in Sheffield.
Review

The Teddy Boys’ two-fingered salute

The postwar revival of Edwardian fashion among the British youth was a rebellion against a world of rationing and restriction.

Mathew Lyons February 29, 2024
Cymande reunion.
Review

Cymande growing old gracefully

A new documentary charts the band’s journey from obscurity to unexpected success.

Max Mitchell February 28, 2024
Clement Attlee, laying the foundation stone of the Royal Festival Hall in London.
Review

Attlee’s shadow

Clement Attlee's Labour government rebuilt Britain after the Second World War and left a contested legacy that has been claimed by both major parties ever since.

Nick Kaderbhai February 26, 2024
The American writer George Kennan (1845-1924) observes Russian convicts on their way to Siberia.
Review

The Russian leopard has not changed its spots

Tucker Carlson is hardly the first American traveller to Russia who has been willingly seduced by its regime.

Will Quinn February 19, 2024
Jewish children from Vienna arriving in the UK, 1938.
Review

The Nazis’ last victims

Many Jewish children who fled Nazi-occupied Europe kept silent about their stories. As the last living links fade away, Julian Borger looks to his own father's experience to unders..

Elisabeth Braw February 13, 2024
An archivist polishes a sculpture of Milton Friedman.
Review

Friedman fighter

Milton Friedman's revolution in economic thought was so total that even his intellectual opponents would admit 'We are all monetarists now.'

Linda Yueh February 8, 2024
A comic book sketch of the Romans in Britain.
Review

We are legion

A riveting British Museum exhibition lays bare the lives of the Roman infantrymen.

Daisy Dunn February 7, 2024

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