Do youth clubs still matter?
British youth clubs began as social experiments and ended up safe havens for creativity and culture. What happens when they…
ByNon-fiction
Discover the latest non-fiction books and must-reads with the New Statesman’s expert reviews. Including biographies, music books, political writing and more.
The struggle for Greenland
As Elizabeth Buchanan’s new history shows, Donald Trump is not the first foreigner to covet the Arctic territory. But his…
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Christianity’s political ascent
Alice Roberts’ history of the late Roman empire dispels the notion of a faith for the poor and oppressed –…
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Robert Louis Stevenson’s adventures in storytelling
A new biography reveals the author as shaped by conflicting influences – and affirms his status as a serious writer.
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Asa Briggs, professor of everything
The historian and educator’s achievements were as long and varied as his contacts book.
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The history of nuclear science
Two new accounts of the atomic age overlook its deadly past.
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Kevin Keegan’s visions of the future
The footballer was restless, as if he never quite found what he was searching for.
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English cricket’s greatest record
One wet summer over a century ago, Gilbert Jessop gave the country something to be cheerful about.
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The politics of murder
The history of assassinations, as Simon Ball points out in his book Death to Order, is one of myth-making, bungled…
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150 years of the bizarre Hans Christian Andersen
His oddball stories were driven by his outsider status and strange appearance.
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Are emojis killing language?
Keith Houston’s history of the little emoticons charts how quickly technology has changed how we think and communicate.
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The Salt Path and the sins of memoir
We are all unreliable narrators of our own lives.
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Samuel Pepys’s diary of a somebody
Kate Loveman’s history of a national treasure preserves Pepys’s charm while revealing a discomfiting historical world.
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Xi Jinping’s daddy issues
The Chinese president’s concept of power was forged by the suffering of his revolutionary father, Xi Zhongxun.
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Six journeys that changed the world
The 20th century, for better and for worse, was the communist century.
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How to read Morgan McSweeney
Why is the Starmer’s chief adviser turning to Alexander Karp, a Silicon Valley billionaire, for inspiration?
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Ignore the pessimists – we are living through a literary golden age
Literature is booming. Literary culture needs to catch up.
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How terror came home on 7/7
In Three Weeks in July, Adam Wishart and James Nally show how the Islamist bomb attacks of July 2005 changed…
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The endless variety of England’s folk traditions
Lally MacBeth’s attempt to chronicle of-the-people culture in detail is a treasure trove of both British folk memory and new…
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The earworms of Erik Satie
The dapper composer who invented background music was driven by a profound if offbeat religiosity.
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