RICHARD MURGATROYD enjoys a readable account of the life and meditations of one of the few Roman emperors with a good reputation
Holocaust Memorial, Judenplatz, Vienna
Concrete reminder of nazi atrocities against Jews during WWII
[Thomas Ledl/Creative Commons]
ALEX HALL asks whether intelligence, and stupidity, are the outcomes of poverty and wealth, and cultural norms
BRENT CUTLER is persuaded by a new account of the rise of Christianity, and the fall of the Roman empire
If non-human nature is devoid of value under the capitalist mode of production, this book presents the case for its reintegration, suggests HENRY BELL
The Bard takes issue with a BBC portrait of The Balkans, and sets the record straight
ANGUS REID urges you to visit Britain’s most remarkable - and mind-blowing - festival of contemporary music
MARIA DUARTE reviews Desperate Journey, Blue Moon, Pillion, and Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
RIGHT in the heart of Vienna sits Judenplatz (Jewish Square), an area where Jews began to settle in about 1150.
Eight hundred lived there by 1400, including merchants, bankers and scholars. But the pogroms instigated by Duke Albrecht V in 1421, culminating in the last 200 being burned alive on a pyre, obliterated the Jewish presence for the next two centuries.
That obliteration resumed just over 500 years after Judenplatz got its name and eight months after Austria’s Anschluss (“reunification”) with Nazi Germany.
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