Reviews

For many, Kafka is not only representative of the modern age, but its foremost prophet.

A cultural history of fat.

Gardens and Gardening in Early Modern England and Wales by Jill Francis explores four centuries of horticultural endeavours.

A German Officer in Occupied Paris: The War Journals 1941-1945 by Ernst Jünger collects The Storm of Steel author’s wartime diaries.

Diderot and the Art of Thinking Freely by Andrew S. Curran explores the trials and tribulations of Denis Diderot.

Reckonings: Legacies of Nazi Persecution and the Quest for Justice by Mary Fulbrook is a long and detailed challenge to the modern cult of memory.

The question of the responsibility of the ‘everyman’ and ‘everywoman’ remains a pressing one in Heimat: A German Family Album by Nora Krug.

On the women who made imperial Rome.

Afghanistan: A History from 1260 to the Present by Jonathan L. Lee is a history fit from the Taliban.

These Truths: a History of the United States by Jill Lepore is a reminder of how tenaciously previous generations have clung to the view that the country is the ‘last, best hope of earth’.