Books

A vengeful pursuit of political power

Natascha Engel reviews Unspeakable by John Bercow

Who holds the power?

Literary reputations are made and broken by a self-appointed clique of bien pensant liberal intellectuals

Masterful tombstone for a tudor bruiser

Hannah Betts reviews The Mirror & The Light by Hilary Mantel

The twin prophets of pessimism

The novelist and the philosopher linked by a common fascination with despair

A puritan but not a fanatic

Simon Heffer reviews Providence Lost: The Rise and Fall of Cromwell’s Protectorate by Paul Lay

The poet and the patrician

Stephen Parkinson reviews The Fire is Upon Us: James Baldwin, William F Buckley Jr, and the debate over race in America, by Nicholas Buccola

War-war not jaw-jaw

Robert Hutton reviews Our Man in New York by Henry Hemming

Why populism is popular

Richard Reinsch reviews The New Class War By Michael Lind

The Steiner of nether edge

Michael Henderson reviews A Small Revolution in Germany by Philip Hensher and Here We Are by Graham Swift

Know your Catalan onions

Gerald Frost reviews Nourishing the Nation: Food as National Identity by Venetia Johannes