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
Latest editorial
Round-up 2016: Non-fiction with Gwyn Griffiths
Star critics run through what’s impressed them this year
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
NOAM CHOMSKY’S Who Rules the World? (Metropolitan Books) reveals more about how the US manipulates world opinion, its sordid history of involvement with Cuba and its support for Israeli war crimes in Gaza.
I liked the chapter on Iran, branded by the US as the world’s “leading exporter of terrorism.” A grim prize indeed but, according to leading Western polling agencies, that prize would be won by a mile by the US.
Chomsky poses another question: “What principles and values rule the world?” Given that the book was published some months before the election of Trump, that makes his query all the more interesting — and frightening.
Similar stories
JOE GILL marvels at the history of a highly complex nomadic and hunter/gatherer society without a hierarchical class system
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?
PAUL DONOVAN is fascinated by the lives of Charles and Mary Bagot, and the insight this biography shines on the morals of pre-Victorian society
STEVE ANDREW is intrigued by a timely and well-researched book that demonstrates the conflicted history of the central Asian country