Tag: History

  • East West Street – On the Origins of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity, by Philippe Sands

    Hardback, Orion Books, £20, out now International human rights barrister Philippe Sands opens his remarkable new book with a quote from Nicolas Abraham: “What haunts are not the dead, but the gaps left within us by the secrets of others”.  Sands tries to fill some of these gaps in the stories of both his family…

  • Gods of Metal, Eric Schlosser

    Penguin, paperback out now £1.99 Somehow I had stopped really thinking about the piles of nuclear weapons placed all over the world: owned, operated and sought by fallible humans. In this substantial and important new piece of reportage, Eric Schlosser (author of Fast Food Nation, Executive Producer of There Will be Blood) updates us on…

  • Ruth Rendell & Penelope Lively

    It’s a truism that old age brings a reawakening of childhood memories. For almost every writer, memory is a rich resource, but things get especially interesting when they undergo that memory reboot in their seventies or eighties. At the age of 84 – and 50 years since her debut From Doon with Death – Ruth…

  • Live From Downing Street: Nick Robinson

    Updated paperback out now – £8.99 The BBC political editor is one of TV’s most familiar faces – and one of the most annoying if you accept Alastair Campbell’s assessment of Nick Robinson (“a jerk”). Well, I’d rather read Robinson’s engaging, witty history and insightful memoir than Campbell’s obsessive, late-night scribbling. It’s not an autobiography…

  • Richard III: biographies and classic crime

    The surprise reappearance of Richard III, dug up in a Leicester car park, is a timely opportunity to try and disinter the truth about a king portrayed as a Machiavellian villain by Shakespeare. “We have to concede the curved spine was not Tudor propaganda, but we need not believe the chronicler who claimed Richard was…

  • Artur Domos?awski: Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski: A Life

     There  are not many as disappointing things in life as finding out that someone whose work you’ve always admired was not an impeccable, godlike figure, but a deeply flawed human being. Suddenly it’s down to us to judge if we can overlook these flaws or if we find them utterly unforgivable. This is a decision…

  • The Rise & Fall of Ancient Egypt: Toby Wilkinson

    As interesting and informative as learning books can be, the reading of them is not always easy and makes impressive demands on the attention. Proper attention, that is.  And that’s if you already have a vague idea of what the book is about (as, quite often, what you bring to the learning book is just…

  • Elizabeth the Queen: Alison Weir

    Without doubt the definitive biography of the era-defining monarch.  Weir’s patient (but never torpid) detail is ideal in reconstructing the life and Court of a woman about whom [too] much is assumed, exaggerated and scandalised.  A wonderful read that leaves you with an indelible portrait.

  • The Hammer and the Cross: Robert Ferguson

    Medieval European history: not for everyone, perhaps, but for those so inclined you can do a lot worse than this (as I have, too often, as testified by an ever-growing pile of never-to-be-finished doorstops). And because I liked it, and more importantly because I finished it (and also because it’s highly accessible but not dumbed…

  • The Hare with the Amber Eyes

    Edmund De Waal, £8.99 De Waal’s Costa Winning bestseller (Biography) traces the history of an inherited collection of netsuke in what was one of 2010’s most warmly received titles.

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