Reviews

Significant works reviewed by Engelsberg Ideas writers.

Roma in Britain.

Europe’s forgotten people

Few people have been subject to so much mythologising as the Roma, though 600 years since their arrival in Europe, they remain little understood.

Mathew Lyons August 2, 2023

An orrery designed by the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe, c1630.

The invention of the average

Economics, medicine, social and natural sciences would all be impossible without the concept of the ‘average’. Why then did it take historians so long to trace its origin to the se..

David Wootton July 27, 2023

The Bloomsbury group's least well-known member, Stephen Tomlin (1901-1937), with his glossy mop of hair, disarming charisma and undeniable talent, deserves to be just as renowned as his contemporaries Duncan Grant, Lytton Strachey, and Virginia Woolf. The first major exhibition of his work at Philip Mould & Co - The Bloomsbury Stud: The Art of Stephen Tomlin (5 June - 11 August ) is aiming to return Tomlin to the artistic spotlight where he belongs and explore an alternative view of the Bloomsbury group, through the eyes of Tomlin.

How it all went wrong for Stephen Tomlin

Talented and doomed, the artist Stephen Tomlin glittered briefly in the Bloomsbury Set but is now largely forgotten. A new exhibition puts his work in the spotlight.

Lucy Thynne July 20, 2023

Jacqueline du Pré

A musical masterpiece

Jennifer Atkins' brilliant but neglected novel reminds us why classical music matters – and why it is under threat like never before

Daniel Johnson July 17, 2023

Seventeenth-century Dutch peasant with two daggers attacks another card player in a dark tavern wields a knife.

The long tail of elite violence

An enthralling new study demolishes the old idea that the rise of the modern European state was a civilising process.

David Wootton July 13, 2023

Marshal Pétain at his trial in 1945.

Banishing Pétain’s ghost

As de Gaulle’s star rose – as de Gaulle became the centrepiece of French national identity and pride – Pétain’s fell.

Samuel Rubinstein July 12, 2023

The Goldfinch by Carel Fabritius (1622–1654).

Carel Fabritius: a precarious life

The art critic Laura Cumming turns her eye to the elusive Dutch golden-age painter Carel Fabritius.

Francesca Peacock July 11, 2023

Two visitors look at a giant cartoon mural depicting a detention camp in the Chinese region of Xinjiang at the Venice Architecture Biennale.

Venetian visions of China’s future

In the city of Marco Polo, the Venice Architecture Biennale shows us that free expression on China is both possible and salutary.

Michael Sheridan July 5, 2023

Charles J. Guiteau shoots President James A. Garfield.

Sex and death in mid-nineteenth century America

Susan Wels captures a fantastically rambunctious period in US history.

Christopher Silvester June 29, 2023

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