Reviews

Significant works reviewed by Engelsberg Ideas writers.

The front piece of Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan
Review

Leviathan 2.0

Can Thomas Hobbes save the modern world?

Bryan Appleyard October 11, 2023
Georg Wilhelm Pabst in Die 3 Groschen-Oper, Germany, 1931.
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
The Tennis Court Oath by Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825).
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
(WOMAN) Ema Nikolovska (ARTISAN) and John Brancy performing in George Benjamin's opera Picture a day like this.
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
Adolf Hitler before launching Operation Barbarossa.
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
General Andrew Jackson taking the surrender of Chief William Weatherford after the defeat of the Creek Native Americans at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, Alabama, 27 March 1814. Color engraving, 19th century.
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
American jazz saxophonist Wayne Shorter.
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
Opera House – in pictures Das Rheingold directed by Barrie Kosky for the Royal Opera. Photograph: Monika Rittershaus/Royal Opera House
Review

An earthy, austere Ring

Barrie Kosky’s highly anticipated Ring Cycle opens with a Rheingold that turns the focus onto Erda, the earth mother, the work’s presiding presence.

Paul Lay September 13, 2023
A portrait of Margaret Lucas Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne (1623-1673), the 17th century English aristocrat, philosopher, poet, scientist, fiction-writer, and playwright. Peter Lely, 1665.
Review

The many worlds of Margaret Cavendish

A new exploration of the extraordinary life and a remarkable mind of Margaret Cavendish, written with lucidity and verve.

Mathew Lyons September 7, 2023

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