Reviews

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

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

Robert Shiels reviews a new book linking industrial pollution to a cluster of serial killers.

Graham Ogilvy reviews a new book exploring the political backdrop to the rise of the Impressionists. 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 agai

A new book casts new light on the fight against Big Asbestos, writes Tom Marshall. 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

Robert Shiels reviews a new book on the less popular of the two things said to be certain in life. 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.

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

Graham Ogilvy reviews a new book on Dorothy Parker's time in Hollywood. Dorothy Parker was celebrated in her time as a poet, a critic and a writer. Above all, she is cherished today for her acerbic wit. But she is less well-known for her Hollywood screenwriting career which spanned three tumultuous

Robert Shiels reviews an apt book for dark times.

Robert Shiels reviews a new book on one of the most notorious crimes in recent English history. The public must surely wish to have a comprehensive narrative of the course of conduct by a medically qualified person resulting in the deaths of many babies, and they have it with this book.

Robert Shiels looks at the "story of law’s reasonable person" — one that has "many beginnings and no end", according to Professor Valentin Jeutner, of Lund University, Sweden. Identifying the concept of a "reasonable person" is not an easy task, given, as this professor discovered, there

Robert Shiels reviews a new book on an infamous series of London murders. The purportedly whole story of the grim events at 10 Rillington Place, London has been offered to the public in different forms over the years but what version is complete, and separately, an accurate one?

With Donald Trump taking legal advice on how to retain a US base on the Chagos Islands, Tom Marshall reviews a new book by Philippe Sands KC which reveals Britain’s duplicity in its dealings with the islanders of its last colony. The Chagos Archipelago, a small group of islands in the Indian O

A monumental new history of Irish republicanism in the Scottish city of Dundee reveals much of the Irish diaspora experience in Scotland and leaves Graham Ogilvy impressed by its thorough research. As a young boy, I walked through the derelict tenements of Tipperary every day to get to school.

In his latest work, James Durney takes readers on a dramatic tour of republican prison escapes, writes Susie Deedigan. Jailbreak opens with Irish Republican Brotherhood president James Stephens’ relatively simple escape from Dublin’s Richmond Prison in 1865 and culminates in the far more