Scraping and Scumbling
A Tate retrospective of Frank Auerbach’s work reveals a man doggedly committed to his art
Politics, Ideas and the Arts
Beauty Of The Beast
Rembrandt Bugatti showed the very soul of his animal subjects
How Olympian Was Renaissance Man?
Leonardo is seen as the presiding genius of his age, but his drawings reveal a reassuringly human artist
The Cold Warrior Who Enjoys The Fight
Henry Kissinger was often compared to Machiavelli but Niall Ferguson shows he was, at heart, an idealist
Subverting The Superpowers
Efraim Karsh's book on the creation of the modern Middle East is timely but overstates his case
From Octavian To Augustus
Jochen Bleichen's biography of the Emperor is monumental but highly readable
New York Survival Story
How the New York Public Library weathered a near-death experience
Caught In The Web
Why is security online so hard to achieve? Edward Lucas's Cyberphobia argues that we are more at risk online than we realise
Prizeman Who Still Glitters
At 84, Frederic Raphael writes with the freshness and vigour of a young man starting out
Israel’s Impish Ice-Breaker
Etgar Keret's memoir The Seven Good Years is mellow but full of deadpan humour about life's absurdities
Saving Greece
The UK should solve the Greek crisis by offering to buy the rest of the Parthenon
Sentimental Nihilism And Popular Culture
Commercial art forms may yet save the Western tradition from its propensity to self-destruction