CATHERINE STEEL relishes a compelling novel about Augustus’s right hand man, but misses the politics, the cultural shifts, and more detail about his restoration of Rome
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Myth-buster
An excellent outline of the political landscape of the 1970s is a welcome antidote to cliched analyses of the decade, says Steve Andrews
TONY BURKE speaks to JOEL McIVER, co-author of the biography of bluesman John Mayall
A misfit couple unhappily ever after, a dead man walking, dodgy journos, and trench art trucking
New releases from Javon Jackson, IZE Trio, and Mal Waldron Trio
PAUL DONOVAN applauds an intriguing multi-layered depiction, dominated by a stunning impersonation of Marilyn herself
EWAN CAMERON marvels at the impossible ambition, realised with dreamlike finesse of translating Italo Calvino to the stage
That Option No Longer Exists: Britain 1974-1976, by John Medhurst (Zero Books, £11.99)
If there is one thing that nearly all historical accounts of Britain in the 1970s agree upon it is that the country was politically chaotic, economically in decline and culturally barren.
It was only with the advent of the Thatcher era that the admittedly harsh but fundamentally necessary measures were taken that would put society back on track. Or so the conventional narrative goes.
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RON JACOBS welcomes a history of the Young Patriots Organisation that is also an organising manual with applications and implications for today
The question is not simply how much we spend on defence, but what we understand defence and security to mean, says SIMON BRIGNELL
STEVE ANDREW appreciates the unusual story of a family childhood spent on the run from the state and its police
MARTIN HALL welcomes a study of Britain’s relationship with the EU that sheds light on the way euroscepticism moved from the margins to the centre