Reviews

Review

Powell and Pressburger worked miracles

A retrospective of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's oeuvre at the British Film Institute (BFI) brings their masterpieces back to life.

Muriel Zagha November 16, 2023

Review

Vienna’s vapour trail

Now judged one of the world’s most liveable cities, the sedate Austrian capital was once a hothouse of social and cultural experiment with profound consequences, good and evil.

Charles Emmerson November 13, 2023

Review

How America became the world’s Leviathan

The US is discovering its unique power in international politics: its unparalleled authority over key nodes of the world economy through which global communications, finance and te..

Jake Dow & Stephen Paduano November 9, 2023

Review

Julian ‘the Apostate’: antiquity’s most prolific self-publicist

The brief reign of the Roman emperor who broke with Christianity remains compelling and controversial.

Nicholas Baker-Brian November 8, 2023

Review

Dance first, think afterwards

A conventional film about the life of Samuel Beckett fails to explore the unconventional writer's work in film and television that made him so interesting.

Alexander Larman November 7, 2023

Review

John Craxton’s art of living

The artist John Craxton's vigorous pursuit of pleasure, his hedonistic philosophy, led him to the shores of Greece and beyond.

Zachary Hardman November 7, 2023

Review

Did slavery cause the British Industrial Revolution?

While the case that slavery was critical to the Industrial Revolution is solid when it comes to capital and markets, it is not easy to establish with technology. And the Industrial..

Tirthankar Roy November 3, 2023

Review

Canada’s Pacific railway: an iron spine for a paper nation

Built to protect British North America from an economically ravenous United States, the Canadian Pacific Railway proved to be a quixotic project.

Michael Ledger-Lomas November 2, 2023

Review

Auden’s Austrian summer

A frustrating study suggests that the relationship between a British-born Viennese Aristocrat and W.H. Auden was crucial to the poet’s late-flowering.

Oliver Soden November 1, 2023