Jason Goodwin
Batten The Hatches
Victory of the West: The Story of the Battle of Lepanto
By Niccolò Capponi
Macmillan 356pp £20 order from our bookshop
Coming hard on the heels of the Ottoman occupation of Venetian Cyprus, the Battle of Lepanto was the first major victory that the Christians had ever carried against the Turks, and has been duly celebrated ever since as marking the moment that the tide turned against the Ottoman project. Only Voltaire demurred; he thought the battle was inconsequential. Niccolò Capponi dismisses this as the error of a man living in an age when victory meant territory: Lepanto gained its victors very little.
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'Unlike much that was extracted from India, these paintings were not plunder, and those who created them were properly remunerated and often received due credit.'
@PParkerWriting on 'Forgotten Masters: Indian Painting for the East India Company'.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/artists-for-hire
‘"I feel", Lowell told Hardwick ... "as if I were pulled apart and thinning into mist, or rather being torn apart and still preferring that state to making a decision."'
Richard Davenport-Hines on the letters of Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Hardwick.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/yours-unfaithfully-2
'To me, Elmore Leonard is as comforting in extremity as Pym, and as safe, in the last resort, as Wodehouse. The guys with the best lines are going to come out the other side; the dumb fucks are going to get it in the head or chest.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/a-spoonful-of-elmore