Reviews

Review

Celebrating Ligeti’s soundspace odyssey

The music of György Ligeti, the great Hungarian composer, still sounds like that of the future.

Benjamin Poore October 23, 2023

Review

Rethinking the medieval Mediterranean

In his new book, Chris Wickham studies the short and long-distance commerce that made Medieval Mediterranean society in a work that is ambitious, punchy and even occasionally amusi..

Nicholas Morton October 12, 2023

Review

Leviathan 2.0

Can Thomas Hobbes save the modern world?

Bryan Appleyard October 11, 2023

Review

The sound of salvation: music against the Nazis

A fascinating and essential book explores the lost legacies of the composers forced to flee the Nazis.

Jessica Duchen October 2, 2023

Review

How to make a nation

In 'Making a Modern Political Order', James J. Sheehan attempts to offer a history of the nation state as we know it, from its origins in other, now mostly unfamiliar, forms of pol..

Brian Smith September 27, 2023

Review

A day to remember

George Benjamin's latest opera, his fourth collaboration with poet Martin Crimp, is further proof of his extraordinary musical and theatrical talents.

Paul Lay September 26, 2023

Review

Realism meets reality

A new book by two leading advocates of the realist school of International Relations inadvertently demonstrates the enduring importance of history, literature and philosophy when d..

Aaron MacLean September 25, 2023

Review

The rise and fall of the Creek Confederacy

The Creek War between Native Americans and white settlers is little studied today but it left a deep mark in American history.

Christopher Silvester September 22, 2023

Review

The boundless creativity of Wayne Shorter

The saxophonist and composer transcended the jazz idiom to become a giant of modern music.

Max Mitchell September 15, 2023