Reviews

Review

The plants that made the modern world

From tulip mania to opium, plants carried across oceans by empire have shaped wealth, power and everyday life for centuries.

Alexandra Wilson April 10, 2026

Review

The roving mind of Jan Morris

Morris was hungry for the world – all of it – and that made her interminably restless.

Bryan Appleyard April 8, 2026

Review

Writing the history of classical music

Robin Holloway’s monumental 'Music’s Odyssey' and Tom Service’s 'A History of the World in 50 Pieces' offer sharply contrasting visions of how the story of western classical music ..

Benjamin Poore April 1, 2026

Review

Arthur Miller and the memory of catastrophe

Arthur Miller’s 'Broken Glass' explores how memories of the Holocaust filter into Jewish American identity.

Malcolm Forbes March 31, 2026

Review

How the Soviet Union lived and died

The Soviet Union was a society defined by the constant tension between revolutionary promise and everyday hardship.

Caroline Eden March 30, 2026

Review

Ovid’s perpetual motion

‘Metamorphoses’, the Rijksmuseum’s exhibition of art inspired by the works of Ovid, shows how the Roman poet's epic of change has resonated through the centuries.

Boyd Tonkin March 27, 2026

Review

Wagner’s Siegfried, a revolution in sound

An exhilarating Siegfried is the latest instalment in Barrie Kosky's celebrated Ring Cycle for London's Royal Opera House. Rich and complex, it powerfully evokes the sound world of..

Tim Bouverie March 23, 2026

Review

France’s quest for the ocean deep

France owns the world's second-largest maritime area, another chapter in the nation's quixotic relationship with science and nature.

Daniel Marc Janes March 20, 2026

Review

Choosing culture over victimhood

Marie Daouda’s 'Not Your Victim' explores how individuals can find meaning in the shared inheritance of culture, rather than in simplified narratives of grievance.

Bijan Omrani March 19, 2026