the French revolution
The subversive message of Paradise Lost
The great poem is mostly about revolution: how much individuals can revolt against God, father, church and king without bringing all the heavens down upon their heads
The rewards of being the ‘asylum capital of the world’
Matthew Lockwood traces Britain’s long history as a haven for refugees and argues that the nation has benefitted greatly over the centuries as a result
Is it an exaggeration to talk of a ‘gender war’?
According to Nina Power’s forceful and rather unusual What Do Men Want?, we in the West are currently engaged in…
The men of blood get their comeuppance in Revolutionary France
Colin Jones’s hour-by-hour reconstruction of the fall of Maximilien Robespierre, the French revolutionary most associated with the Terror, is inspired…
Not so dryasdust: how 18th-century antiquarians proved the first ‘modern’ historians
Antiquaries have had a bad press. If mentioned at all today, they are often derided as reclusive pedants poring over…
The life and loves of Mary Wollstonecraft
Ruth Scurr reveals what an impulsive, life-loving individual Mary Wollstonecraft was
Insects of the hour
Did you go to college? If so, then it is overwhelmingly likely that you have been the recipient of a…
William Sitwell’s history of eating out reminds us painfully of what we’re missing
In the concluding chapter of this book the Daily Telegraph’s restaurant critic and recovering vegan-baiter William Sitwell muses on the…
The glory and the misery of Louis XIV’s France
I was flicking through an old copy of The Spectator the other day, one of the issues containing contributors’ ‘Christmas…
Horrors of the house of wax: Little, by Edward Carey, reviewed
The reader of Edward Carey’s Little must have a tender heart and a strong stomach. You will weep, you will…
Steve Jones’s chaotic theory of history
‘They fuck you up, your mum and dad.’ Philip Larkin’s most famous line has appeared in the Spectator repeatedly, and…
To the ends of the earth — but not back
What’s in a name? The identity of the author offers a clue to one of the themes of this intriguing…
France’s favourite bedtime story: a sanitised version of the French Revolution
The great conundrum of French history is the French Revolution, or rather, the sequence of revolutions, coups and insurrections during…
Man of destiny: Napoleon was always convinced he was the chosen one
It is almost inconceivable that there could be a more densely detailed book about Napoleon than this — 800 crowded…
When the money ran out, so did the idealism in post-Revolutionary France
Why did the French Revolution go so wrong, descending into a frenzied bloodbath in just five years? Because by 1794 all trust had vanished, and the country had literally run out of cash, explains Ruth Scurr
How the smile came to Paris (briefly)
In 1787 critics of the Paris Salon were scandalised by a painting exhibited by Mme Vigée Le Brun. The subject…
This thriller is as good as anything by Hilary Mantel
A few years ago, after a lifetime of wearing white shirts through which the straps of my white bra were…
Where did the Right and the Left come from?
What is the origin of left and right in politics? The traditional answer is that these ideas derive from the…
