Is England really a nation of losers?
Three new books attack English self-mythologisation, but they’re often wide of the mark – whereas a certain Green MP makes plenty of sense
Three new books attack English self-mythologisation, but they’re often wide of the mark – whereas a certain Green MP makes plenty of sense
Angus Hanton’s book Vassal State is a provocative and detailed study of how Britain’s economy fell victim to US power – and how to respond
Caroline Burt & Richard Partington’s new book Arise, England is a terrific account of the Plantagenets who ruled for over 300 years
In her formidable history of the 1913 Mental Deficiency Act and its effects, Sarah Wise uncovers a staggering range of injustices
Burnout, Hannah Proctor’s study of ‘the experience of political defeat’, is full of historical detail, but it’s messily put together
Roger Casement rejected the Empire, allied with Germany and, as Roland Philipps’s superb study Broken Archangel shows, paid dearly
Strike Up the Band is a spirited chronicle of the Roaring Twenties in New York City, but it fails to develop an integrated narrative
Guy de la Bédoyère’s rollicking new book, Populus, sweeps away the lofty and imperial, and revels in the mundane and absurd
In Four Stars, Joel Golby narrates his life via a string of reviews. It’s often sharp and affecting, but there are questions for the editors
Our Fight, the second memoir by former MMA champion Ronda Rousey, is a tale of industry norms that range from sad to frightening
Anne Somerset’s fascinating new book, Queen Victoria and the Prime Ministers, shows how the monarch clashed with successive governments
Never mind Dickens’s picaresque – Drew D Gray’s fascinating Nether World exposes the truth about the 19th-century criminal underworld
Auteurs frontman Luke Haines’s new book Freaks Out! offers a waspish, eccentric guide to rock ’n’ roll misfits from the 1950s to today
Red Queen?, Michael Ashcroft’s unauthorised biography of the deputy Labour leader, is detailed, but prefers triviality to true intelligence
Philosopher Judith Butler tries to rewrite biology in Who’s Afraid of Gender?, a muddled book that can’t even define its terms
The Pope’s career, as related in his autobiography Life, has seen him frequently cause friction, and oppose everything from poverty to TV
Nick Lloyd’s exhaustive and meticulous history lays out the far-reaching consequences of the fighting in central and south-eastern Europe
Justine Firnhaber-Baker’s House of Lilies is a chronicle of one of medieval Europe’s most powerful dynasties, the back-stabbing Capetians
As Alpa Shah’s The Incarcerations shows, the so-called ‘BK case’ exemplifies India’s degraded public life under the current prime minister
From teenagers told they’re destined to commit crime to gig workers who mysteriously lose their jobs, Code Dependent is a frightening read