Articles
Essays, reviews, and commentary on literature, history, politics, and ideas.
Strength, not Power
Combating oppression and injustice with clarity rather than anger
Larkin at 100
The elusive depth that lies behind the all-too-explicit ordinariness
Pass the Parcel
Ways in which knowledge was disseminated in early modern Europe
Göring’s Man
The postwar networks of the Nazi art plunderers and their facilitators
Russian Myths
Vasily Grossman and the narrative of the Great Patriotic War
Cold War Culture
Orwell, Koestler and the democratic left’s crusade against Stalinism
Anyone for Tennis?
An engaging and self-deprecating meditation on getting on
A Gallic Potpourri
An idiosyncratic history of France from a skilled storyteller
All for Pemberley
Jane Austen and the pursuit of an advantageous marriage
Too Much, Not Enough
A meditation on time and the pressure to use it productively
From the Home Front
The letters of an American woman living in wartime Northern Ireland
Darts of Thought
An exploration of the complexities of identity and relationships