CONTENTS

THIS MONTH’S PULPIT is written by Andrew Lycett. He is the biographer of Ian Fleming, Dylan Thomas and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. He is working on a book about Wilkie Collins.

FERGUS FLEMING’s anthology, The Traveller’s Daybook, will be published in November.

MAURICE KEEN has written widely on medieval history as a Fellow and Tutor of Balliol College, Oxford from 1961 to 2000.

TIM BLANNING is a Fellow of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. His most recent book is The Romantic Revolution (Weidenfeld & Nicolson).

LEANDA DE LISLE’s latest book is The Sisters Who Would be Queen: The Tragedy of Mary, Katherine & Lady Jane Grey (HarperPress).

DONALD TRELFORD was Editor of The Observer from 1975 to 1993, and is Emeritus Professor of Journalism Studies at Sheffield University.

ANNA REID is the author of The Shaman’s Coat: A Native History of Siberia (Perseus Books). Her latest book, Leningrad: Tragedy of a City under Siege, 1941-1944, will be published by Bloomsbury in September.

MICHAEL BURLEIGH is working on a book about the global Cold War from 1945 to 1965 to be published in 2012.

CLAIRE HARMAN’s most r e c ent book is Jane’s Fame: How Jane Austen Conquered the World (Canongate).

DANIEL SWIFT is the author of Bomber County: The Lost Airmen of World War Two, published by Penguin.

WILLIAM ST CLAIR is the author of The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period (Cambridge University Press).

LITERARY REVIEW July 2011

PULPIT

HISTORY

LITERARY LIVES

MUSIC & FILM

BOMBS AWAY

BIOGRAPHY

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ANDREW LYCETT

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MAURICE KEEN For Honour and Fame: Chivalry in England, 1066–1500 Nigel Saul TIM BLANNING A Most Dangerous Book: Tacitus’s ‘Germania’: From the Roman Empire to the Third Reich Christopher B Krebs MICHAEL BURLEIGH Imperial Endgame: Britain’s Dirty Wars and the End of Empire Benjamin Grob-Fitzgibbon LEANDA DE LISLE The Trials of Margaret Clitherow: Persecution, Martyrdom and the Politics of Sanctity in Elizabethan England Peter Lake & Michael Questier GILLIAN TINDALL The Inner Life of Empires: An EighteenthCentury History Emma Rothschild PETER JONES The Cambridge World History of Slavery: Vol I, The Ancient Mediterranean World (Edd) Keith Bradley & Paul Cartledge

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FERGUS FLEMING ON MERVYN PEAKE’S CENTENARY CLAIRE HARMAN Crusoe: Daniel Defoe, Robert Knox and the Creation of a Myth Katherine Frank DANIEL SWIFT Strange Meetings: The Poets of the Great War Harry Ricketts WILLIAM ST CLAIR ON WILLIAM GODWIN’S LETTERS & DIARIES

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FREDERIC RAPHAEL Orpheus: The Song of Life Ann Wroe DANIEL SNOWMAN Gustav Mahler Jens Malte Fischer Richard Strauss: A Musical Life Raymond Holden PAUL BAILEY John Gielgud: Matinee Idol to Movie Star Jonathan Croall KEVIN JACKSON Nightmare Movies: Horror on Screen since the 1960s Kim Newman

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LEO MCKINSTRY The Age of Airpower Martin van Creveld PATRICK PORTER The Age of Deception: Nuclear Diplomacy in Treacherous Times Mohamed ElBaradei How the End Begins: The Road to Nuclear World War III Ron Rosenbaum

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SARAH BRADFORD As Good as God, As Clever as the Devil: The Impossible Life of Mary Benson Rodney Bolt DONALD TRELFORD First Lady of Fleet Street: The Life, Fortune and Tragedy of Rachel Beer Eilat Negev & Yehuda Koren CATHERINE PETERS Constance: The Tragic and Scandalous Life of Mrs Oscar Wilde Franny Moyle ALEX GOODALL American Radical: The Life and Times of I F Stone D D Guttenplan TOM FLEMING Endgame: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Bobby Fischer Frank Brady

Editor: NANCY SLADEK Deputy Editor: TOM FLEMING Editor-at-Large: JEREMY LEWIS Senior Editor: JONATHAN BECKMAN Contributing Editors: MICHAEL BURLEIGH,

SARA WHEELER, PHILIP WOMACK Editorial Assistants: FRANK BRINKLEY, TOM WILLIAMS

Advertising Manager: TERRY FINNEGAN Classified Advertising: DAVID STURGE

Founding Father: AUBERON WAUGH

Cover illustration by Chris Riddell

Issue no. 389

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FOREIGN PARTS

LETTER FROM SIERRA LEONE

GENERAL

FICTION

CRIME POETRY SILENCED VOICES LR CLASSIFIEDS LR BOOKSHOP LR CROSSWORD

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ERIC KAUFMANN American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us Robert D Putnam & David E Campbell AATISH TASEER Undercover Muslim: A Journey into Yemen Theo Padnos DAVID GILMOUR Street Fight in Naples: A City’s Unseen History Peter Robb PATRICK MARNHAM Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa Jason K Stearns ANNA REID White Fever: A Journey to the Frozen Heart of Siberia Jacek Hugo-Bader JEREMY LEWIS Thin Paths: Journeys in and around an Italian Mountain Village Julia Blackburn

SIMON AKAM

MICHAEL COLLINS Hood Rat Gavin Knight PETER MARSHALL Evening’s Empire: A History of the Night in Early Modern Europe Craig Koslofsky STEVE FULLER The Tribal Imagination: Civilization and the Savage Mind Robin Fox J MORDAUNT CROOK The Battle of the Styles: Society, Culture and the Design of a New Foreign Office, 1855–1861 Bernard Porter TIM RICHARDSON Gardens of Earthly Delight: The History of Deer Parks John Fletcher JONATHAN MIRSKY In Defence of Dogs: Why Dogs Need Our Understanding John Bradshaw

CAROLE ANGIER Scenes from Village Life Amos Oz JOHN THIEME Last Man in Tower Aravind Adiga JONATHAN BECKMAN The Stranger’s Child Alan Hollinghurst TIM MARTIN There but for the Ali Smith OLIVIA LAING You Joanna Briscoe ANDREAS CAMPOMAR The Rest is Silence Carla Guelfenbein KEITH MILLER Embassytown China Miéville SIMON WILLIS Waterline Ross Raisin DAVID ANNAND Telescope Jonathan Buckley

JESSICA MANN

LUCY POPESCU

LEO MCKINSTRY’s Spitfire: Portrait of a Legend, Hurricane: Victor of the Battle of Britain and Lancaster: The Second World War’s Greatest Bomber are published by John Murray.

PATRICK PORTER i s a Senior Lecturer in Defence Studies at King’s College London. He is the author of Military Orientalism (Hurst).

SARAH BRADFORD i s cur r ent l y working on a biography of Queen Victoria. Her book on Elizabeth II is to be published by Viking in January for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

ERIC KAUFMANN’s latest book, Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth?, is published by Profile Books.

AATISH TASEER i s the author of Stranger to History: A Son’s Journey through Islamic Lands. His new novel, Noon, is published by Picador.

DAVID GILMOUR’s most recent book is The Pursuit of Italy: A History of a Land, Its Regions and Their Peoples, published by Allen Lane.

PATRICK MARNHAM i s writing a book about the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

MICHAEL COLLINS is the author of The Likes of Us: A Biography of the White Working Class, published by Granta.

PETER MARSHALL i s Professor of History at the University of Warwick.

STEVE FULLER is the Auguste Comte Professor of Social Epistemology at the University of Warwick. His next book, Humanity 2.0: What It Means to Be Human Past, Present and Future (Palgrave Macmillan), will appear in the autumn.

OLIVIA LAING is the author of To the River (Canongate).

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LITERARY REVIEW July 2011