Alex Goodall
Shooting Stars
Age of Assassins: A History of Conspiracy and Political Violence, 1865–1981
By Michael Newton
Faber & Faber 726pp £25
Poor, dull Switzerland! The historic refuge of political conspirators and fleeing assassins across the years, it has also been, as Michael Newton points out in his sweeping new history of assassination, a constant target of abuse from the outlaws who found safety behind its borders. For all its hospitality, the land of cuckoo clocks offered little to the political killer: what they craved was not safety but a piece of the action.
At first it seems implausible that one could write a coherent history of assassinations – which, after all, are hardly confined to a particular political group, time, context or tradition. Newton introduces us to nihilists, anarchists, revolutionary republicans and nationalists, and the endless variations on the theme of individual political
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
Twitter Feed
Don't ask about the dress code, don't talk about your spouse too much, flirt with everyone
Andrew Martin on the rules, pleasures and pitfalls of living in Paris
Andrew Martin - Bobos versus Beaufs
Andrew Martin: Bobos versus Beaufs - Impossible City: Paris in the Twenty-First Century by Simon Kuper
literaryreview.co.uk
for the latest edition of @Lit_Review I worked on some excellent pieces – @MortenHoiJensen on Kafka
@ellafox_m on @mimpathy (Honor Levy)
@profrhodrilewis on Shakespeare novels
@edcumming on Kaliane Bradley
@zoeguttenplan on @NationalTheatre's Dickens show
wrote about MY FIRST BOOK (@GrantaBooks) for @Lit_Review, a book that I think makes difficult things look very easy: