Reviews

An assassination is pre-eminently a political murder; a killing, in itself a crime, has been sanctioned by someone with an interest in the outcome and carried out on their behalf. The traditional British political response to an assassination was to narrow the extent of an apparently preceding consp

Scotland has never quite had an artist like John Bellany, and probably never will again. Correction: delete ‘probably’. His work has had a force and an impact which few of his generation could replicate, and he was so doggedly sui generis that we must hesitate to classify him as simply S

Allan Pinkerton (born Glasgow 1819 – died Chicago 1884) has a complex legacy. Some recall with pride that the Scot was the founder of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. In short, Pinkerton pioneered the enforcement of law and order on the American frontier, upheld principles of gender eq

Douglas Ross KC reviews the latest instalment in Philippe Sands KC's "loose trilogy". Philippe Sands KC is a leading public international lawyer who has moved beyond the realm of practitioner/academic by writing a series of books based on themes of international law and justice aimed at a wider audi

This substantial work is a study of the intellectuals who migrated to Britain during the 1930s from countries in Central and Eastern Europe that were overrun by fascism. It was thought that between 1933 and 1940 about 100,000 such refugees arrived in Britain, although many merely passed through

Murderland, as a history of extreme crime in particular geographical areas of the United States of America, transcends true-crime voyeurism and noir mythology. Many of the individual criminals discussed in the book are very well-known. It may seem odd, however, to read that in 1972 the city of El Pa

Alastair Tibbs reviews Netflix's new documentary on the Grenfell Tower fire. In the early hours of 14 June 2017, the London sky was ignited. What started as a spark from a faulty fridge soon became the blaze that claimed the lives of 72 men, women and children. It was, however, a perfect storm of ne

Sebastian Smee’s Paris in Ruins: Love, War, and the Birth of Impressionism was published last year to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the first exhibition by 30 artists who rebelled against the stultifying grip of the French art establishment and who jointly ushered in the age of the Im

Recently caught up in the Iberian power failure, Robert Shiels, ponders on the lessons of Oliver Letwin’s prophetic book on the subject. This small book bobbed along for four years after publication, perhaps un-noticed, or ignored in part due to the argument around potential disasters, and pos

David J Black reviews a brace of new books on Edinburgh, ‘Scotia’s darling seat’. Alistair Moffat’s A New History of Edinburgh could best be described as a quixotically compelling, if not always satisfying, read. A prolific writer with a well-known background in television, t

The history of the harms caused by asbestos is a long and painful one. Since the start of the large-scale commercial exploitation of the mineral in the 19th century, evidence of its damaging effects has been noted and well documented. In the United Kingdom diseases caused by dust exposure were among

Death scholarship is well-established. Dr Molly Conisbee, a visiting fellow at the Centre for Death and Society at the University of Bath, has studied many aspects of death and mourning. As this is a ‘people’s history’, the study has excluded intentionally the monumental death cere

Lewis and Harris, or Lewis with Harris, are one – a Scottish island in the Outer Hebrides, around 24 miles from the Scottish mainland. With an area of 841 square miles it is the largest island in Scotland and the third largest in the British Isles, after Great Britain and Ireland.

Turning Point: The Vietnam War, NetflixThe new five-part documentary series on the Vietnam war, now available on Netflix, charts the course of the war and skilfully explores how the Vietnam debacle has weakened American democracy and continues to do so. It may lack the subtlety and incredible show-d

It is a curious fact, strange but true, that the best books on Spain are written by foreigners. It is impossible to think of Andalucía without Irish writer Gerald Brenan springing to mind. The lives and careers of the poet Lorca and film-maker Buñuel are likewise synonymous with anothe