Richard Holmes’s popular histories of the British army – Redcoat, Tommy, and Sahib – and his television War Walks, in which he recounts with enthusiasm and wryness the army’s battles, have established him, alongside the cerebral Sir John Keegan and Oxford’s Professor Hew Strachan, as one of the country’s leading military historians. As a military […]
According to the author, American Shogun is an attempt to weave the lives of two leaders, General Douglas MacArthur and Emperor Hirohito of Japan, into a single narrative ‘told from both sides’. Readers, he says, should judge whether he has succeeded. It was never likely to be an easy assignment. MacArthur left behind him a […]
On a programme on political diarists the other evening on Radio 4, it was remarked that in a century or so people will only know Cabinet ministers like Geoffrey Howe through the prism of Alan Clark’s diaries. The priapic fancier of Margaret Thatcher’s ankles might have been a smaller man politically, but history – through […]
Because Field Marshal Lord Wavell was removed from two very important posts – the Commandership-in-Chief of the Middle East and the Viceroyalty of India – he has gone down in history as an overall failure. This sympathetic biography goes some way towards redressing this harsh verdict, especially concerning the Indian part of his career.
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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