Reviews

Significant works reviewed by Engelsberg Ideas writers.

Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan (right) meets with visiting Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz
Review

Digital dictatorship: a brutal examination of the UAE

Review: This brave investigation paints a pessimistic picture of how the Abu Dhabi regime has increased control since the Arab Spring.

Rory Cormac July 8, 2022
An English landscape by James Smetham.
Review

Great Books: The Golden String by Bede Griffiths

Disillusioned by the conventional Christianity of the early twentieth century, but undergoing a profoundly awe-inspiring spiritual experience, Bede Griffiths' ability to breathe fr..

Christopher Harding July 7, 2022
persia llewellyn-jones
Review

Historical decadence — The Persians: The Age of the Great Kings by Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones review

This is an expansive account of the ancient Achaemenid Empire. But has Llewellyn-Jones allowed his enthusiasm to cloud historical judgment?

Ali Ansari July 1, 2022
Tourists, pupils and pioneers staying at a holiday camp on the Black Sea, Navodari, Romania in the 1960s.
Review

Element of the absurd — In Search of Romania by Dennis Deletant review

Deletant draws on nearly six decades’ entanglement with a country of contradictions in memoir that is both deeply personal and historically insightful.

Katja Hoyer June 24, 2022
German sailors standing on the conning tower of a U-boat.
Review

A marriage of the geopolitical, the military and the material — Victory at Sea: Naval Power and the Transformation of the Global Order in World War II by Paul Kennedy review

While the intricacies of twentieth-century military history offer a well-trod path, the experience of reading Kennedy’s latest work is as humbling as it would be to watch a master ..

Lincoln Paine June 17, 2022
Plan of Roman London
Review

Excavating Londinium — London in the Roman World by Dominic Perring review

Dominic Perring provides a meticulous and exhilarating account of London's early history, which often leaves the reader dazzled by the way the evidence for the life of the city has..

Armand D'Angour June 16, 2022
The advance of the Anglo Egyptian Force upon Omdurman, Battle of Omdurman 2 September 1898.
Review

Despotism or anarchy? — Promised Lands: The British and the Ottoman Middle East by Jonathan Parry review

Parry chronicles Britain's tumultuous, sometimes comical, imperial efforts in the Middle East throughout the nineteenth century.

James Barr June 1, 2022
The battle of Toski in Egypt, 1889 between Anglo-Egyptian forces and Mahdist Sudanese.
Review

A collision of rival visions — Empire and Jihad: The Anglo-Arab Wars of 1870-1920 by Neil Faulkner review

Faulkner orientates the reader through the clash between imperialism and Islamism via the African slave trade.

Bijan Omrani May 27, 2022
Capitol Hill Building
Review

Statecraft for an age of blood and iron — The Strategy of Denial: American Defence in an Age of Great Power Conflict by Elbridge Colby review

This work not only spells out in careful exactitude what America’s choices are. More fundamentally, it turns to the most essential question: what is strategy and statecraft for?

Patrick Porter May 20, 2022

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