History
Revolutionary Passions
Germaine de Staël and Benjamin Constant: A Dual Biography by Renee Winegarten
Hitler’s European Union
Hitler’s Empire: Nazi Rule in Occupied Europe by Mark Mazower
The Koran: Scrutinising the Inscrutable
Each new translation of Islam’s most sacred text offers fresh insights into its meaning. Yet there are still surprises in a book that is not only hard to read, but hard to know how to read, even for Muslims
From Berlin to Beijing
The tradition of the Olympic torch relay is not ancient and has nothing to do with Greece. It was in fact an invention of the Third Reich
The Ministers of Sound
From the Beatles and Wilson to Bono and Blair, the rise of rock stars to power and influence has tempted leaders all over the world to cultivate them – even at the risk of ridicule
Name-dropping is Uncharitable
When charities drop their illustrious founders’ names, we all lose
Not a Clash of Civilisations
Worlds at War: The 2,500-Year Struggle between East and West by Anthony Pagden
The Art of Being English
Cold Cream by Ferdinand Mount
Empire of the Bun
The Hamburger: A History by Josh Ozersky
Long Night of the Red Star
Jung Chang and her husband Jon Halliday are leading authorities on Mao, while Simon Sebag Montefiore has published two major works on Stalin. With Standpoint editor Daniel Johnson, they discuss the two communist dictators who were responsible for up to 100 million deaths
Why Remoaners should back Boris
“Boris, ironically, now offers Remoaners the best chance of a soft Brexit, or at least a sensible one. And to those who want a second referendum—’the people’s vote’—there may even be a chance of that too.”
On the road
“In the summer of 1980, in the grip of some Kerouac-ish fantasy, I opted to hitch-hike from Laredo to New York”
Discovering the Great War of China
A third of a million Chinese labourers helped the Allies defeat the Kaiser, but their huge unsung contribution ended in betrayal