Frances Welch has a sharp eye for a quote. ‘Man’s sensitivity to little things and insensitivity to the greatest are the signs of a strange disorder’ (Pascal), printed on the opening pages of her book, might have been written with Tsar Nicholas II in mind. Nicholas seems to have had little grasp of the major […]
Over the last few years, books on the Great Game and the First Afghan War have not been in short supply. William Dalrymple’s monumental Return of a King has won the contest for public attention, but this is just one of a score of good recent works. With so many writers engaged in this field, […]
Kathleen Burk opens her book with the line ‘Britons have a problem with their Empire.’ So do Americans, though some of them question whether they ever had one. Ruling territories outside a nation’s borders has become an increasingly contentious issue in our contentious age, with empire builders widely condemned, their monuments attacked and their portraits […]
In his masterly Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory and the Conquest of Everest, the Canadian writer Wade Davis re-envisaged attempts to climb Mount Everest in the 1920s as a response to the despair and carnage of the trenches. The book deservedly won the Samuel Johnson Prize in 2012. Deborah Baker’s no less accomplished […]
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Knowledge of Sufism increased markedly with the publication in 1964 of The Sufis, by Idries Shah. Nowadays his writings, much like his father’s, are dismissed for their Orientalism and inaccuracy.
@fitzmorrissey investigates who the Shahs really were.
Fitzroy Morrissey - Sufism Goes West
Fitzroy Morrissey: Sufism Goes West - Empire’s Son, Empire’s Orphan: The Fantastical Lives of Ikbal and Idries Shah by Nile Green
literaryreview.co.uk
Rats have plagued cities for centuries. But in Baltimore, researchers alighted on one surprising solution to the problem of rat infestation: more rats.
@WillWiles looks at what lessons can be learned from rat ecosystems – for both rats and humans.
Will Wiles - Puss Gets the Boot
Will Wiles: Puss Gets the Boot - Rat City: Overcrowding and Urban Derangement in the Rodent Universes of John B ...
literaryreview.co.uk
Twisters features destructive tempests and blockbuster action sequences.
@JonathanRomney asks what the real danger is in Lee Isaac Chung's disaster movie.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/eyes-of-the-storm