CONTENTS

THIS MONTH’S PULPIT is written by Gillian Tindall. Her Footprints in Pa r i s was publi s hed i n 2009 by Chatto & Windus. The F i e l d s Beneath is being reissued by Eland Press next month.

ADRIAN TINNISWOOD’s latest book, Pirates of Barbary, is published in paperback by Vintage in March.

CHRISTOPHER ANDREW is Professor o f Modern and Contemporary History at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and t he au t hor o f Defence of the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5 (Allen Lane).

DEREK MAHON’s New Col l e c t e d Poems is due in April.

SARA WHEELER’s Access All Areas: Selected Writings 1990–2010 is published by Jonathan Cape in March.

TIM BLANNING is a Fellow of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. His most recent book is The Romantic Revolution.

DAVID STAFFORD’s next book, Mission Accomplished: SOE and Italy, 1943–45, is published in March.

MICHAEL JACOBS’s most recent book is Andes (Granta).

ROGER KIMBALL is co-editor of The New Criterion.

JOHN CORNWELL is Director of the Science and Human Dimension Project at Jesus College, Cambridge.

STANLEY MITCHELL’s translation of Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin is published by Penguin Classics.

DONALD RAYFIELD is Emeritus Professor of Russian and Georgian at Queen Mary, University of London, and author of Stalin and his Hangmen (Penguin).

PULPIT

HISTORY

LITERARY LIVES

FOREIGN PARTS

VITAL ORGANS

DRAGONS’ DEN

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GILLIAN TINDALL

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TIM BLANNING Bismarck: A Life Jonathan Steinberg PIERS BRENDON Liberty’s Exiles: The Loss of America and the Remaking of the British Empire Maya Jasanoff DAVID STAFFORD The Emperor’s Codes: Bletchley Park’s Role in Breaking Japan’s Secret Ciphers Michael Smith CHRISTOPHER ANDREW The Dead Hand: Reagan, Gorbachev and the Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race David E Hoffman MICHAEL JACOBS The Anatomy of a Moment Javier Cercas FELIPE FERNANDEZ-ARMESTO Islanders: The Pacific in the Age of Empire Nicholas Thomas

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DEREK MAHON Joseph Brodsky: A Literary Life Lev Loseff ADRIAN TINNISWOOD Reprobates: The Cavaliers of the English Civil War John Stubbs ROGER KIMBALL Believe in People: The Essential Karel Capek (Ed) Sárka Tobrmanová-Kühnová PAMELA NORRIS Katherine Mansfield: The Story-Teller Kathleen Jones STANLEY MITCHELL Mirror of the Soul: A Life of the Poet Fyodor Tyutchev John Dewey

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JASON BURKE The Tenth Parallel: Dispatches from the Faultline between Christianity and Islam Eliza Griswold SUDHIR HAZAREESINGH The Wind f r om t h e East: French Intellectuals, the Cultural Revolution, and the Legacy of the 1960s Richard Wolin DONALD RAYFIELD I am a Chechen! German Sadulaev MICK BROWN To a Mountain in Tibet Colin Thubron SARA WHEELER Bird Cloud Annie Proulx

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JOHN CORNWELL The Tell-Tale Brain: Unlocking the Mystery of Human Nature V S Ramachandran JAMES LE FANU Invasion of the Prostate Snatchers Ralph H Blum & Mark Scholz

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JOHN KEAY The Scramble for China: Foreign Devils in the Qing Empire, 1832–1914 Robert Bickers TIMOTHY BROOK A Jesuit in the Forbidden City: Matteo Ricci 1552–1610 R Po-chia Hsia Mission to China: Matteo Ricci and the Jesuit Encounter with the East Mary Laven Matteo Ricci, un jésuite à la cour des Ming Michela Fontana Lettres à Matteo Ricci An Huo

LITERARY REVIEW February 2011

Editor: NANCY SLADEK Deputy Editor: TOM FLEMING Editor-at-Large: JEREMY LEWIS Assistant Editor: JONATHAN BECKMAN Editorial Assistant: ALEXANDER BLASDEL Contributing Editors: MICHAEL BURLEIGH,

SARA WHEELER, PHILIP WOMACK Advertising Manager: TERRY FINNEGAN Classified Advertising: DAVID STURGE

Founding Editor: DR ANNE SMITH Founding Father: AUBERON WAUGH

Cover illustration by Chris Riddell

Issue no. 384

2 FEBRUARY 2011

BIOGRAPHY

GENERAL

FICTION

CRIME POETRY SILENCED VOICES LR CLASSIFIEDS LR BOOKSHOP LR CROSSWORD

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JOHN MCEWEN Derek Hill Bruce Arnold LEO MCKINSTRY The Flight of the Century: Charles Lindbergh and the Rise of American Aviation Thomas Kessner NIGEL JONES Unbroken: An Extraordinary True Story of Courage and Survival Laura Hillenbrand JONATHAN MIRSKY The King’s Speech: How One Man Saved the British Monarchy Mark Logue & Peter Conradi

RAYMOND TALLIS The Immortalization Commission: Science and the Strange Quest to Cheat Death John Gray MARTIN VANDER WEYER Treasure Islands: Tax Havens and the Men Who Stole the World Nicholas Shaxson ROGER HIGHFIELD Incoming! Or, Why We Should Stop Worrying and Learn to Love the Meteorite Ted Nield CHARLES ELLIOTT The Founding Gardeners : How t h e Revolutionary Generation Created an American Eden Andrea Wulf JOHN MARTIN ROBINSON Lost Victorian Britain: How the Twentieth Century Destroyed the Nineteenth Century’s Architectural Masterpieces Gavin Stamp KEVIN JACKSON A Clockwork Counterpoint: The Music and Literature of Anthony Burgess Paul Phillips DOMINIC SANDBROOK Hot Stuff: Disco and the Remaking of American Culture Alice Echols CHRISTOPHER HART Shapely Ankle Preferr’d Francesca Beauman JAMES PURDON A Life in Pictures Alasdair Gray RICHARD DAVENPORT-HINES High Society: Mind-Altering Drugs in History and Culture Mike Jay

TOBY LICHTIG Great House Nicole Krauss PATRICIA DUNCKER Jubilate Michael Arditti TOM WILLIAMS The Ballad of John Clare Hugh Lupton JOHN DE FALBE Samko Tále’s Cemetery Book Daniela Kapitánová MICHELE ROBERTS We Had It So Good Linda Grant PHILIP WOMACK A Kind Man Susan Hill JONATHAN BECKMAN The Passages of Herman Melville Jay Parini JANE CHARTERIS Lyrics Alley Leila Aboulela

JESSICA MANN

LUCY POPESCU

RAYMOND TALLIS i s Emeritus Professor of Geriatric Medicine at University of Manchester. His Aping Mankind: Neuromania, Darwinitis and t he Misrepresentation o f Humanity (Acumen) is due out in the spring.

JASON BURKE is south Asia correspondent for The Guardian and The Observer. His latest book is On the Road to Kandahar: Travels through Conflict in the Muslim World.

JAMES LE FANU is a doctor. His most recent book, Why Us? How Science Rediscovered the Mystery of Ourselves, is published by HarperPress.

MARTIN VANDER WEYER is business editor of The Spectator.

SUDHIR HAZAREESINGH teaches at Balliol College, Oxford. His latest book, Le Mythe Gaullien, is published by the Editions Gallimard in Paris.

ROGER HIGHFIELD is the editor of New Scientist magazine and co-author (with Martin Nowak) of the forthcoming book, Supercooperators: The Mathematics of Evolution, Altruism and Human Behaviour (Or, Why We Need Each Other to Succeed).

MICK BROWN is the author of The Spiritual Tourist and The Dance of 17 Lives: The Incredible True Story of Tibet’s 17th Karmapa.

PAMELA NORRIS’s most recent book is Words of Love (HarperCollins).

JOHN KEAY’s most recent book, China: A History, is published by HarperPress.

JOHN MARTIN ROBINSON is the author of Grass Seed in June (Michael Russell).

TIMOTHY BROOK’s recent books i nc l ude Vermeer’ s Hat and The Troubled Empire.

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LITERARY REVIEW February 2011