Beard on the faces of power through history. She asks why - for over two millennia - the striking, stony realism of Roman portraiture has been a touchstone for subsequent depictions of power... read more
Genial mix of aesthetics, lit crit, philosophy, art and history. Rabelais, Vermeer, ancient Rome and a classical Greek text in 16 vols about a single meal. The latter would have given Proust... read more
A gorgeous, illustrated study of the ways in which shells were circulated, depicted, collected and valued during a time of remarkable global change, by aristocrats and apothecaries, scholars... read more
Macartney's 1793 mission was a failure, but the Dutch were better informed. This new study argues that the Qing court was not arrogant and narrow-minded, as the English concluded, but was in... read more
A biography of the man so vividly presented in Robert Edric's 2008 novel 'In Zodiac Light': the poet and composer who, following his experiences as a soldier in WW1, was confined to an asylu... read more
A panoramic account by the distinguished Harvard historian of five generations of a French provincial family originally from Angouleme, crammed with stories and archival research. ER has a d... read more
A compelling portrait of the writer and her engagement with her own world. Constructed as a series of essays on art, memory, painting, rank, property, appearance, etc., this is immensely rea... read more
The author of 'Wittgenstein's Poker' traces the influential circle (Neurath, Carnap, Wittgenstein, Popper) whom the Austrian fascists and Nazis saw as such a threat.