Reviews

Review

The strange death of the nation state

Nation states were never a natural or immutable part of our world order, and their decline and displacement through technological transformation may ultimately be a positive story.

Bryan Appleyard February 26, 2026

Review

The visions of Harald Voetmann

Rich, brutal, and darkly funny, the Danish novelist's harrowing trilogy concludes with a portrait of the 11th-century scholar Othlo of St Emmeram, exploring humanity’s efforts to d..

Daniel Skeffington February 19, 2026

Review

Strindberg’s study of a marriage

In 'The Dance of Death', August Strindberg imagines marriage as a sealed citadel of resentment and mutual destruction.

Malcolm Forbes February 18, 2026

Review

Charles III’s philosophy of harmony

The monarch's philosophy of ‘harmony’ is a theistic vision rooted in Renaissance humanism and natural law, seeking to reconcile unity and diversity in an ordered cosmos.

Esmé Partridge February 17, 2026

Review

How Germany misread Russia for three decades

Berlin's 30-year rapprochement with Russia is a cautionary tale of a country that became blind to the possibility of war – and is now paying the price.

Friedrich Asschenfeldt February 9, 2026

Review

The transformation of Ernst Kantorowicz

The mutable German-Jewish historian was many things, but never dull.

Samuel Rubinstein February 6, 2026

Review

How not to save opera

Treating culture as a battlefield is not the way to revitalise the world of opera.

Alexandra Wilson February 2, 2026

Review

The allure of Catholic conversion

From Oscar Wilde to Muriel Spark, many British writers, artists and thinkers were drawn to the Catholic Church in the 20th century.

Guy Stagg January 29, 2026

Review

The power of night-thinking

Night-thinking reveals what our age of reason and certainty often overlooks: the power of the holistic, the intuitive, and the fragmentary.

Mateusz Strozynski January 26, 2026