The bones that built Britain
Winchester Cathedral’s mysterious “bone chests” tell a story of how warring kings and queens forged a new nation.
ByDiscover all the New Statesman’s latest articles and reviews of history books. Here you can find expert opinion on the best reads for 2022.
Winchester Cathedral’s mysterious “bone chests” tell a story of how warring kings and queens forged a new nation.
ByA new history shows how the clever, ambitious queen was no match for the post-truth politics of Henry VIII’s court.
ByAn oral history of the bitter Eighties dispute reveals a conflict that went far deeper than just government vs trade…
ByJeremy Eichler’s Time’s Echo shows how four great 20th-century composers captured the horrors of conflict.
ByThe final part of Jonathan Sumption’s epic history reveals the complacency that led to the end of English power in…
ByAlso featuring The Story of Scandinavia by Stein Ringen and Big Meg by Tim and Emma Flannery.
ByThe 20th century’s most influential history book foresaw the collapse of the Soviet Union and rise of China. Thirty-five years…
ByA study of postwar British politics overstates the influence of its leading personalities.
ByDebates about Britain’s colonial legacy are not just a product of Brexit or woke politics – empire has always been…
ByBuilt on imperial amnesia and competing nationalisms, the EU has never been the beacon of inclusion it claims to be.
ByThis list offers the most incisive books on the past and present of Russia and its president.
ByAlso featuring Crisis Actor by Declan Ryan and Women We Buried, Women We Burned by Rachel Louise Snyder.
ByHow the self-made man got lost in the marketplace of ideas.
ByA new book revisits Freud’s analysis of Woodrow Wilson to ask: how much do leaders’ psychologies shape our politics?
ByJonathan Kennedy’s Pathogenesis reveals how diseases have built and broken empires and economies.
ByAlso featuring M John Harrison's Wish I Was Here and Jonathan Miles on the French Riviera.
ByAfter the revolutions of 1848, liberals helped create a conservative international order that has shaped the world since.
ByNikhil Krishnan’s A Terribly Serious Adventure shows how Oxford’s “ordinary language” movement, pioneered by JL Austin and Gilbert Ryle, looked…
ByMen at War, Luke Turner’s tender account of servicemen’s transgressive private lives, transforms our understanding of the Second World War.
ByHow Quinn Slobodian, the author of Crack-Up Capitalism, came back down to earth.
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