Archive

Stalingrad by vasily grossman translated by robert chandler and elizabeth chandler nyrb classics, 1088 pages, $27.95 Until surprisingly recently, most left-wing and liberal people were hesitant and equivocal about...

One of my worst and most embarrassing failures as a journalist was my attempt to interview Harold Macmillan, the former British prime minister. It happened on a train near...

We were warned about statues. The Psalms were so concerned about them that they said almost exactly the same thing in both the 115th and 135th of those often...

Most of my memory of my teenage years is firmly locked and sealed. Sometimes a long-forgotten smell, the most evocative of all the senses in this deodorized world, will...

Metternich:Strategist and Visionaryby wolfram siemanntranslated by daniel steuerharvard, 928 pages, $39.95 rn In the midst of a Haydn concert in London in June 1794, the young Clemens von Metternich...

Am I going to have to fall out of love with juries? For decades I have defended these curious committees, which can ruin a man’s life in an afternoon....

Good heavens, this is hard to write. To experience a national humiliation and shame is one thing. To describe it is far, far worse. It is like making a...

I achieved herd immunity many years ago. In fact, I think I was born with it. No, I am not talking about the supposed protection from disease granted by...

The story goes that the great sculptor Eric Gill (1882–1940) was inclined—for reasons we will come to—to over-emphasize sexual organs in some of his work. When he was commissioned...

Even when I was excited about the European Union, I was bored by it. It came into my life as an issue after the Cold War ended. Until then,...

I do not much like the British royal family. The Queen, though by far the best of them, takes increasingly frequent plunges into political correctness. This is presumably because...

Bibi: The Turbulent Life and Times of Benjamin Netanyahuby anshel pfefferbasic, 432 pages, $32 After Israeli Premier Yitzhak Rabin was murdered by an ultra-­Zionist fanatic in November 1995, the...

Tell Your Children: The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violenceby alex berensonfree press, 272 pages, $26 The smoking of marijuana, with its careful preparation of the elements and...

De Gaulleby julian jacksonharvard, 928 pages, $39.95 Using pick handles and rifle butts, the police force of one of the world’s most civilized countries surrounded and savagely beat hundreds...

Franco: Anatomy of a Dictatorby enrique moradiellosi.b.tauris, 264 pages, $30 Not long after the successful Allied landings in Normandy in June 1944, Francisco Franco, dictator of Spain, removed a...