News

Stop hankering for the fantasy of a golden age

Nostalgia, vividly expressed in the cause-we-shall-not-mention-here, has become fashionable among Britain’s double-breasted classes. Read More

Yesterday’s Parties. Max Reviews ‘Anthony Powell: Dancing to the Music of Time’ by Hilary Spurling

Anthony Powell by Hilary Spurling (Hamish Hamilton) A few decades ago, Evelyn Waugh and Anthony Powell were widely regarded as Britain’s foremost novelists of the modern era. Read More

Early Praise for Vietnam

‘This is a comprehensive, spellbinding, surprisingly intimate, and altogether magnificent historical narrative.’ Tim O’Brien, Vietnam veteran and novelist Read More

Audio Extract: The Secret War: Spies, Codes and Guerrillas 1939–1945

‘As gripping as any spy thriller, Hastings’s achievement is especially impressive, for he has produced the best single volume yet written on the subject’ Sunday Times Read More

Audio Extract: Catastrophe: Europe Goes to War 1914

The Amazon History Book of the Year 2013 is a magisterial chronicle of the calamity that befell Europe in 1914 as the continent shifted from the glamour of the Edwardian era to the tragedy of total war. Read More

The English love a buffoon but the Boris Johnson joke went tragically wrong

A few months ago on the London Underground, a middle-aged stranger who found himself my neighbour demanded: “Excuse me asking, but you will know if anybody does — is Boris Johnson going to resign?” Read More

Don’t let’s delude ourselves over the special relationship

The only certainty about President Donald Trump’s visit next week is that it will unloose a fresh torrent of clichés about the “special relationship” between Britain and the United States. The man himself, if he feels benign, may toss us a bone by according it lip service. Read More