Reviews Archive

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

Review

The ins and outs of the European project

A fresh, exciting but flawed analysis of the EU’s civilisational mission.

Samuel Rubinstein September 4, 2023

Diogenes sitting in his tub by Jean-Léon Gerôme (1860).

Review

Mad dog Diogenes

Truth and fiction elide in the life of the colourful figurehead of cynicism, which presents a considerable challenge to the biographer.

Armand D'Angour August 31, 2023

György Kurtág’s Endgame performed at the Proms.

Review

György Kurtág contemplates his endgame

The 97-year-old is one of the last living links to the defining postwar composers of the European avant-garde.

Benjamin Poore August 30, 2023

Zadie Smith at a literature festival at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele.

Review

Zadie Smith’s weighty Mantel piece

Slightly academic, deeply researched, and typically self-referential, Zadie Smith’s first attempt at a historical novel is, despite its debts, novel.

Lucy Thynne August 23, 2023