THE PRISM OF BEAUTY: Ancient Greeks and the Gods
Image: A Classical sculpture in Florence “It is beautiful; it has no meaning,” the French Nobel laureate André Gide remarked on Aristide Malliol’s sculpture The Mediterranean when it was shown…
The Truth about Machiavelli
This fascinating book represents the distillation of a lifetime of scholarly thought on Machiavelli. The author is Prof. Harvey C. Mansfield of Harvard University, the pre-eminent American political philosopher of…
Beautiful, Wonderful, Deep Mathematics
Image: Eratosthenes teaching in Alexandria “I would plead for more attention to the history of mathematics. It seems to me to be extremely desirable, if not actually indispensable, for entering…
When MONSTROSITY DEFINED HUMANITY
While this is a fine synthesis of the ancient Greek experience, it must be said that there is little ‘new’ in this book by Jennifer Roberts. The target audience is…
Natural Philosophy at Oxford University
Image: Sir John Ball, Sedleian Professor from 1996-2019 For the past 400 years, Oxford University has had an endowed chair of natural philosophy. It began in 1621, due to a…
Centennial of Britain’s First Labour Government
In 2024, Sir Keir Starmer became the new Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. As leader of the Labour party, he swept to power with 412 seats in Parliament. As…
Spying for Russia in the Cold War: A Grubby Scheme
Photo: British PM Harold Wilson in 1975 Back in the 1980s, PM Margaret Thatcher was obsessed with Russian spying. The so-called Spycatcher Affair became THE cause célèbre in England, and…
Naples 1925: A Critical Year for Philosophy
Image: Mt. Vesuvius, near Naples This unusual book prompted a lengthy essay in The New Yorker magazine on Nov. 25, 2024. It was written by the editor of Granta, Thomas…
British Economics: 1800-1914
This book examines in detail the so-called “Laissez-Faire Experiment” that dominated British government economic policy during the long nineteenth century: 1800 to 1914. Author W. Walker Hanlon (associate professor of…
The British Constitution: A Child of Conflict
Image above: the Magna Carta My headline for this book review derives from chapter 17 in volume 1, written by Robert Crowcroft (Univ. of Edinburgh). It is one of 42…