Reviews

The Barrel of a Gun: Political Power in Africa and the Coup d’État by Ruth First is a timely reissue from the first wave of Africa’s ‘coup contagion’.

What can three recent books – Master of Rome by David Potter, The Roman World War by Giusto Traina, and Livia by Caitlin C. Gillespie – tell us about Rome’s political personalities?

Burn This Letter: Love and Trouble in a Marriage of Four by Susan Pedersen wonders whether a radical relationship might offer inspiration for a radical restructuring of society.

Neanderthals Among Us: The Making of a Prehistoric Human by Peter Sahlins charts the ascent of an idea from prehistory to popular culture.

Philip Hensher’s A History of the Novel in Britain is certainly novel but how does it fare as history?

Offa, King of the Mercians by Rory Naismith looks to the quality of Mercia to find the model king of Anglo-Saxon England.

The Bookshop: A History of Bookselling From the Dawn of Print to the 21st Century by Andrew Pettegree reveals the hard graft and innovation behind the book trade.

Desk Revolutionaries: The Men of the French Directory, 1795-9 by Biancamaria Fontana sets the record straight on the French Revolution’s great experiment in governance.

The Rise and Fall of American Europe by Glyn Morgan finds a continent powerless before a capricious United States. Is it too late to teach an old world new tricks?

The Traveller: The Revolutionary Life of George Forster and His Search for Humanity by Andrea Wulf brings the most enlightened of Enlightenment radicals into the mainstream.