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
The Village in Revolt
by Shaun Jeffery
(Higdon Press, £14.99)
THERE are numerous accounts of the Burston school strike, which is the longest in English history, running from 1914 to 1939. Among them is The Burston Rebellion, the personal account by Tom Higdon whose unfair dismissal along with his wife led to the children striking on their behalf.
Yet many of those accounts are at best partial and at worst lacking in crucial detail and accuracy and none provides as comprehensive nor as overtly socialist an account in their analysis and detail as this new work by Shaun Jeffery. Its synthesis of in-depth secondary research and lived experience make it a compelling account and point of reference.
Nature as well as society works dialectically, asserts the Marx Memorial Library and Workers’ School
CHRISTIAN KNOBLAUCH is thrilled by the response of children to the presence of artefacts from the British Museum in their classrooms
MARTIN HALL examines the way the Roman orator took on different schools of philosophy
JULIA THOMAS unpicks the mental processes that explain why book-to-film adaptations so often disappoint



