Sugar transformed our world. From its origins in New Guinea, this tall sappy grass initially made slow progress around the globe. It reached India in 500 BC, and then travelled harmlessly to Persia, arriving 1,000 years later. But, in the early 15th century, it reached Europe, and suddenly everything changed. Sugar would become the catalyst
The publication of Pakistan: A Hard Country could not be more timely. International attention has been focused on Pakistan since the Americans killed Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad. Being in the spotlight generally means trouble for this country that has been bedevilled by war and political drama for over three decades. Foreigners announce goodwill and
Sporting literature is a strange old business, often underrated by those who don’t like sport and overrated by those who do. In particular, a warm glow hovers over the reputation of golf writing, which has attained an eminence the unsung litterateurs of snooker and darts can only envy. Golf Stories (Everyman’s Library, £10.99), edited by
Wicked Company is the collective biography of a group of men with little in common, apart from a generalised dissatisfaction with the state of the world around them. Perhaps that is true of most intellectual coteries. The kings of the Parisian Enlightenment of the 18th century were the mathematician Jean d’Alembert and the playwright and
This is a lovely book. Judy Golding writes of her father —indeed of both her parents — with candour, humour and great insight and perception This is a lovely book. Judy Golding writes of her father —indeed of both her parents — with candour, humour and great insight and perception. More than that, here is
The Forgotten Waltz is one of those densely recapitulative novels that seek to interpret emotional crack-up from the angle of its ground-down aftermath. At the same time, it is not really a book about hindsight. Sometimes extending information to the reader and sometimes deliberately covering its tracks, sometimes inviting sympathy for its characters and sometimes
Jason Stearns is a brave man. He once worked for the UN’s disarmament programme in eastern Congo, a job which required him to probe the forests around the town of Bukavu, seeking out members of the local Mai Mai militia. Jason Stearns is a brave man. He once worked for the UN’s disarmament programme in
It’s impossible not to warm to the author of this book, a perky Turkish-American woman with a fascination with Russian literature and an irresistible comic touch. It’s impossible not to warm to the author of this book, a perky Turkish-American woman with a fascination with Russian literature and an irresistible comic touch. I began it
This is a strange exercise. It is a commonplace book of quotations from great authors, assembled by the philosopher A. C. Grayling. The extracts from the great books, how- ever, are provided without attribution. Furthermore, they are arranged in numbered ‘verses’, like the divisions of the ‘texts’ in the Bible. The Bible was thus divided
The sum of hard biographical facts about Captain Cook never increases, nor is it expected to. It is the same with Shakespeare. J. C. Beaglehole’s Life of Captain James Cook (1974), which Frank McLynn quotes often, contains most of what is known about Cook’s family life and origins. As the son of a Yorkshire farm
No description of Eric Gill is ever without the words ‘devout Catholic’, and Eric Gill: Lust for Letter & Line (British Museum Press, £9.99), while short, provides evidence to both confirm and confound that assessment. One can follow the three-year journey of Gill’s celebrated Stations of the Cross for Westminster Cathedral from preparatory drawing to
A. N. Wilson has a queasy feeling that he won’t be re-reading the works of G. K. Chesterton for a while Yet another book on Chesterton! William Oddie is only half way through his immensely detailed two-volume biographical-cum-theological study of the man mountain of Fleet Street. Last year we had Aidan Nichols on Chesterton’s theology.
Nicola Shulman begins her rehabilitation of Thomas Wyatt by remarking that there is ‘an almost universal consensus that he can’t write’ — a consensus established within a generation of his death in 1542. Nicola Shulman begins her rehabilitation of Thomas Wyatt by remarking that there is ‘an almost universal consensus that he can’t write’ —
A chronicle of three young actors desperate to forge careers in the acting profession sounds like a dangerously familiar proposition. We are all now habituated to the weekly Saturday evening drama of wide- eyed dreamers drilled, mauled, culled and reculled in search of a Nancy, Dorothy or Maria. In Lucky Break, however, Esther Freud redraws
British writers who set their first novels in America are apt to come horribly unstuck. One of the pleasures of Sam Leith’s debut novel is its sureness of tone. All the elements here are properly balanced. Nothing feels clumsy or over-egged. So what? you might think. Isn’t this what any halfway decent novelist does? Yes,
Towards Mohammed Reza Pahlavi (1919–1980), the last or most recent Shah of Iran, there are two principal attitudes. Towards Mohammed Reza Pahlavi (1919–1980), the last or most recent Shah of Iran, there are two principal attitudes. To the Islamic Republic and many in Europe and the US, Mohammed Reza was a tyrant, womaniser and poltroon,
Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia offers two contrasting views on a ‘Capability’ Brown landscape at the imagined Sidley Park. Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia offers two contrasting views on a ‘Capability’ Brown landscape at the imagined Sidley Park. Lady Croom, the 19th-century owner, praises its harmonious natural style, even down to ‘the right amount of sheep tastefully arranged’. Two
Anyone who thinks that a stable and loving family background is the key to a happy life had better read this book; for its protagonist, now 80 years old, was rejected as a baby by his unmarried mother, looked after by a doting and doted-on grandmother until he was four, and then, inexplicably (given that
‘What am I? A completely ordinary person from the so-called higher reaches of society. ‘What am I? A completely ordinary person from the so-called higher reaches of society. And what can I do? I can train a horse, carve a capon, and play games of chance.’ So reflects Botho von Rienäcke, the central character of
‘There never was a Churchill, from John of Marlborough down,’ wrote Gladstone, ‘that had either principles or morals.’ With the shining exception of Winston and his brother Jack, Churchill men have tended to be bad hats, but this makes them all the more interesting to read about. ‘There never was a Churchill, from John of