Nearly three quarters of the world’s population, according to the experts, live in autocracies. Anne Applebaum’s Autocracy, Inc wants us to see the resemblances in these single-party, single-leader regimes, the network of connections they have established and the risk they pose to free peoples. The problem with her analysis is that these regimes differ as much as they resemble... read more

A mountain of historical studies testifies to enduring interest in the American Civil War, a conflict still politically relevant in a nation riven over how to remember it. Those doubting that there is anything fresh to say about the bloodiest event in the republic’s history should read Pulitzer Prize winner Alan Taylor’s brilliant, panoramic account of the conflict. Applying a wide continental... read more

In 1996, Jan de Bont’s tornado-chasing adventure Twister revived the disaster movie by using computer-generated imagery (CGI), at the time a relatively new technology. Now, in the belated follow-up – strictly neither a sequel nor a remake – the tornadoes have become more deadly and more frequent. But Twisters shows another perilous phenomenon: the trend for promising directors of independent films to be swept up in the whirlwind... read more

I am precisely the target audience for this small book on the French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal. Although I work on 17th-century philosophy (in a quite different part of the world, in my defence), I knew next to nothing about Pascal save for those things named after him – the unit of pressure, the triangle of binomial coefficients, the famous wager – before starting Compagnon’s... read more

Columbus, Indiana, is an unusual spot. Most towns within fifty miles of Indianapolis are internationally known for, well, nothing at all. This one is renowned for a superb collection of modernist buildings, designed by Eliel and Eero Saarinen, I M Pei, Harry Weese, Kevin Roche, Robert Venturi and many more. Seven of these are US National Historic Landmarks... read more

A few years ago, a movement called #NousToutes staged a series of night-time guerrilla actions in Paris and began changing street names. Below the original plaque they posted one of an identical design that gave the name and date of a woman’s death. The inscription often added ‘murdered by a “compagnon” or “conjoint” or “ex-conjoint”’. The effect on passers-by like me was sobering and eye-opening. There were so many... read more