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
John Maclean
by Henry Bell
(Pluto Press, £14.99)
AS THE 100th anniversary of the infamous Battle of George Square in Glasgow approaches, there will be much ink spilt about Red Clydeside and Henry Bell's timely book on John Maclean is a welcome contribution to the centenary commemorations.
Like any worthy biography, it's as much a biography of the milieu in which the subject lived. In this case, we get a portrait of Scotland's modernity — one of rapid urbanisation and its discontents — refracted through the figure of Maclean.
HENRY BELL salutes a fine portrait of a revolutionary who remains a deeply significant and provocative figure
BEN CHACKO unpicks the significance of the discovery, in 2015, of ancient texts about Confucius. Was he simply a teacher, or a philosopher, statesman and saint?
KENNY MacASKILL is disappointed by a polemical, rather than factual, account of the Lone Star State and its political path since the civil war
JOHN GREEN welcomes a remarkable study of Mozambique’s most renowned contemporary artist



