Chris Wickham challenges the idea, inherited from Edward Gibbon, that Rome went into a ‘decline and fall’. The late Roman world was, as he shows, a stable and sophisticated society, bound together by patronage, commerce and, above all, taxation. Many of its citizens lived in bustling cities or country estates. It did not suddenly fall […]
The Inheritance of Rome Read More »
Fidel Castro died in Cuba in 2016. With his departure, the dream of communism as a political reality sank below the verge. China is ruled by a ‘communist’ dictatorship but in reality runs a form of state sponsored turbo-capitalism. Russia has reverted to type with a strong man Czar despotism, the Duma being a toothless
Karl Marx by Gareth Stedman Jones Read More »
Gerald Seymour has been entertaining us with adventure/crime/terrorism/military fiction in 32 novels since 1975. His latest is Jericho’s War. The summary is as follows. The occasion will demand nerve shredding courage that will affect many thousands of lives. A handful of men and women will converge on a barren stretch of Yemeni desert. Each of
E.M. Forster stated ‘Death destroys a man, but the idea of death saves him’. This is exactly the sentiment that inspired the physician and writer Raymond Tallis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Tallis) to pen his latest book, The Black Mirror: Fragments of an Obituary for Life. It contemplates a life looked back on from beyond; a meditation on being
The Black Mirror by Raymond Tallis Read More »
We are all living poorer lives because of cheats, tax dodgers, criminals and the corrupt. The scale of wealth that is stolen from you should make you boil with rage. And it’s not just in hopelessly brutal and corrupt regimes in Africa, South America or Asia that it takes place. It’s in Europe and North America.
Unmasked by Laurence Cockcroft Read More »
From the year 1000 remarkable changes can be charted in Europe. The lifting of the Dark Ages brought with it a huge gain in population (from two million to ten million in England, from four to fourteen million in German-speaking countries, and so on). There were advances in technology, including the adoption of three-field farming
Europe in the High Middle Ages Read More »
Empires come and go. The relative strength of cultures around the globe wax and wane. Europe, arguably, has enjoyed a 500 year dominance. But how did its culture rise to achieve imperial influence? Tim Blanning (https://www.sid.cam.ac.uk/aboutus/people/person.html?crsid=tcb1000) offers some answers by giving an account of ‘the long 18th century’ (1648-1815). He begins with The Treaty of
The Pursuit of Glory Read More »
With a condescending smirk it’s easy to dismiss intellectuals as a bunch of inconsequential twits. Happily, they confine themselves to ‘ivory towers’ in places like Magdalen College, Oxford. Wrong! Intellectuals and thinkers of various stripes have had an enormous impact on the world and all who live in it. The consequence of their thought is profound. What
The Reckless Mind by Mark Lilla Read More »
Some books grow in repute over years as if by gestation. This novel by Michael Chabon (https://www.harpercollins.com/authors/michaelchabon) has quietly become something of a cult classic, readers smiling to themselves about its genius. I wonder if you’ll agree that it’s an astoundingly good read. The summary is as follows. Josef Kavalier smuggles himself out of occupied Prague
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon Read More »
