The depiction of ordinary places, and of the changing seasons and skies which shadow or illuminate them, is at the core of ...

Where Rituals Come Home to Roost - The Robe and the Sword: How Buddhist Extremism is Shaping Modern Asia by Sonia Faleiro ...

In January 2014, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria took the Syrian town of Raqqa. Within a week, the Salafi-jihadist group banned smoking, ordered that photographs be removed from shop windows and ...

Oil has been the world’s most sought-after and fought-over commodity for the past hundred years. But the advance of technology has brought us to the threshold of a new era in which demand for ...

Why did the United States go to war in Vietnam? One would think this question would have a definitive answer by now, but it continues to provoke a cascade of questions. Was the war avoidable? If not, ...

The Cambridge Footlights, the university’s comedy club, has not greatly altered its modus operandi since its first production in 1883. During termtime, the club puts on sketch shows and a pantomime, ...

For many years now Frank Dikötter has been shining a light on the history of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), revealing the full horrors of the Great Leap Forward and ‘land reform’ in books such as ...

The novelist Colm Tóibín was once asked whether he felt isolated growing up in rural Ireland, so far from the capitals of culture. He replied that provincials are the real cosmopolitans. With little ...

Although Sylvia Plath is admired by many literary scholars and even adored by some passionate readers, critics have not been unanimous in their assessment of her art. Irving Howe declared in 1972 that ...

There is, plainly, no logic in the unfolding of time.’ Pankaj Mishra makes this sceptical observation in order to undermine the theories of history that have inspired Western thinkers and leaders over ...

I’m going to start this review with an admission: I have next to no idea what this book is about. Not in a literal sense, obviously; there is a writer called Rachel Cusk, who used to be married and ...

This large book is both rewarding and demanding. It offers information in abundance and, like Sir Barry Cunliffe’s previous publications from OUP, it is beautifully written and illustrated. But what ...