The Moneybags and the Brains
The Bretton Woods conference of 1944 saw a historic meeting of economists that changed the world forever
Politics, Ideas and the Arts
Weathering The Storm
Global Crisis by Geoffrey Parker is a masterpiece of historical scholarship, but fails entirely in its stated aim of linking political disaster to a changing climate
Monstrosities of a Vile Victorian
Linda Stratmann's attempt to exculpate the Marquess of Queensberry of his myriad sins is a misguided stab at rescuing a the reputation of a truly wretched man
Russia’s Poisoned Hinterland
The Last Man in Russia by Oliver Bullough charts the unsavoury history of alcoholism, violence, abortions and nihilism in the former USSR. For all this, it is beautifully written
Transatlantic Vanity Project
Frederic Raphael and Joseph Epstein's published correspondence is a phoney exercise in literary bitchiness and mutual back-slapping
More Than a Curmudgeon
R.S. Thomas is frequently characterised as a misanthropic ogre. On the centenary of his birth, the publication of his humane Uncollected Poems belies this misplaced view
Long Live the Novella
Two recently translated European novellas, by Sophie Divry and Brigit Vanderbeke, are wonderful examples of this short literary form
The Poet To Whom Fascism Owed It All
Lucy Hughes-Hallett's Life of Gabriele D'Annunzio paints a picture of a compelling and anarchic poet-statesman
Not Hitler’s Pope, But No Saint Either
Robert A. Ventresca's attempt to dispassionately assess the divisive Pope Pius XVII's pontificate is well-meaning but a penance to read
Privileged Outsider
The cult of Benjamin Britten lives on in Paul Kildea's new biography, painting the composer as a perennial victim
Israel’s Tragic Hero-Victim
Unapologetic terrorist or revolutionary? Menachem Begin is rightly de-demonised, but not whitewashed, in Avi Shilon's new biography
The Philosopher and His Scholar
Noel Malcolm's magisterial new edition of Hobbes's Leviathan is a fine example of why, in the 21st century, scholarship still matters