‘Humanly Possible’ by Sarah Bakewell review
Humanly Possible: Seven Hundred Years of Humanist Freethinking, Enquiry and Hope is a Whiggish history of humanism from the Renaissance to the present.
Reviews
‘Young Queens’ by Leah Redmond Chang review
Not every Renaissance queen was remarkable, but that does not make them insignificant.
‘Alle Thyng Hath Tyme’ by Gillian Adler and Paul Strohm review
On the difficulty of keeping time with the people of the past.
It's Not Just Cricket
Did the British Empire have a culture?
Boudica Lite
A search for Boudica finds its author, but not the Queen of the Iceni.
It’s Bliss
Is knowledge a useful remedy for ignorance?
All Among the Watchtowers
A new book claims to be the definitive history of the GDR. Is it? And don’t we have those already?
Broad Church
Soaring and swooping through a history of Catholicism, from 1789 to the present day.
‘Courting India’ by Nandini Das review
Courting India: England, Mughal India and the Origins of Empire by Nandini Das details the uncertainty, contingency and precarity of England’s imperial ambitions.
Ancient Outtakes
Depicting an ancient world in which Amazons fought alongside men, winds had distinct characters, and tortoises sang.