Reviews

Shadows at Noon: The South Asian Twentieth Century by Joya Chatterji is a gently revisionist account of an enduring, if ever-tottering, democracy.

Bismarck’s War: The Franco-Prussian War and the Making of Modern Europe by Rachel Chrastil argues that German victory was a catastrophe for Germany and the world.

Psychonauts: Drugs and the Making of the Modern Mind by Mike Jay is a fascinating study of cyclical attitudes towards self-experimentation.

Well-researched and attractively written, Plato of Athens: A Life in Philosophy by Robin Waterfield grapples with a life that left few records.

Wahhābism: The History of a Militant Islamic Movement by Cole M. Bunzel is groundbreaking and deserves to reach as wide an audience as possible.

Homer and His Iliad by Robin Lane Fox is a masterly survey of the Iliad, its majesty, its pathos and its unparalleled progression from wrath to pity.

Popularizing the Past: Historians, Publishers, and Readers in Postwar America by Nick Witham explores the industry of popular history from Daniel Boorstin to Howard Zinn.

Some 110,000 Jews left Iraq in 1950 and 1951 – a Jewish community that could trace its origins back to the Babylonians.

The suggestion that Russia has become an Orwellian tyranny is an inadequate explanation as to why the country finds itself in its present situation.

A part-memoir, part-historical exploration of British Second World War masculinity and sexuality.