Books- Page 4

A full Brexit would give the UK an opportunity to re-set our relationship with the land and the seas — if the current impasse is resolved so that we are no longer

John Buchan’s labours not only served the public good: they provided the raw material and characters for his thrillers

David Laws demolishes a conspiracy theory about the death of Lord Kitchener and does it very classily indeed

McEwan and the machine

"Keir Giles suggests what the West’s policy towards Moscow should look like if it is to be guided by reality rather than hopes or a pretty dream"

"Amazon’s puff for On Freedom says that Sunstein takes a “pathbreaking” approach to the subject. In fact, confounding ability with freedom is an old mistake"

"Christopher Clark's subject is neither time nor power, but something even more evanescent: how those who wielded power were influenced by their sense of history"

The Fourth Reich concerns of the first 15 years or so after the war were essentially rational, but in the 1960s the term became “universalised”, exaggerated, and distorted

In her lively and readable biography, Adina Hoffman charts Ben Hecht’s progress from America’s most successful screenwriter to Jewish activist

"What exactly is China anyway? Is it a civilisation, as some claim? Or a “civilisation state”, with unique cultural markers but within set borders?"

"Francis Green and David Kynaston do not like private schools. They think the government should do something to stop children attending them. Why? You already know the answer."

Peter Stanford grew up with a benevolent notion of angels. But the true picture is complicated: while some angels in the Bible are kindly, others are brutal