The Princess and the Poet
An inscription in an old book is the clue to a lost world of literary salons and love affairs
Politics, Ideas and the Arts
Heartless Hero for the Hipster Generation
It is a fact that a high proportion of unreliable narrators of novels are intelligent, arrogant, badly-behaved, young males.
Deep History Or Just Conspiracy?
Built on misreadings and deceptive elisions, Nancy MacLean's Democracy In Chains reframes the colourful tale of the American Right as a dank, dark conspiracy
Gullible Guests of the Nazis
Julia Boyd's meticulously-researched Travellers in the Third Reich shows visitors to Hitler's Germany saw only what they wanted to see
Romantic Revolutionary
James Hamilton's biography of Thomas Gainsborough offers a portrait not just of the artist but also of the worlds he moved through
Rediscovering a Roman Thought
Lucretius’s poem On the Nature of Things was written in 50 BC, yet remains as startling as ever
Hinterland of a Recluse
Jasper Johns is the J.D. Salinger of contemporary art, whose gnomic work defies easy categorisation
Champion Silenced
Sarah Champion — unlike her critics — is on the side of the victims
Thespian Agitprop
Why is British theatre about Israel so relentlessly one-note?
Flat Tax For Italy?
A flat tax and radical fiscal restructuring would transform Italy's economy and encourage taxpayers to invest in their human capital
College Daze
A university reunion offers a useful reminder that the Sixties might not be quite as we remember them