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Editor Nancy Sladek Deputy Editor Tom Fleming Assistant Editor David Gelber Contributing Editors Jonathan Beckman Michael Burleigh • Sara Wheeler • Philip Womack Editorial & Marketing Assistant Michael Delgado Marketing Manager Constance Watson Advertising Manager Terry Finnegan Classified Advertising David Sturge Founding Editor Dr Anne Smith Cover Illustration Chris Riddell

The Literary Review, incorporating Quarto, is published monthly f rom: 44 Lexington Street, London W1F 0LW • ISSN 0144 4360 Tel: 020 7437 9392 • editorial@literaryreview.co.uk letters@literaryreview.co.uk All subscription enquiries and changes of address to: Literary Review Subscriptions, The Maltings, West Street, Bourne, Lincolnshire PE10 9PH • Tel: +44 (0) 1778 395 165 subscriptions@warnersgroup.co.uk All advertising enquiries to: Terry Finnegan, Literary Review, 44 Lexington Street, London W1F 0LW • Tel: 020 7437 9392 terry@literaryreview.co.uk • david.sturge@btopenworld.com Print by: CPUK Print Publishing Ltd, www.cp-uk.co.uk Distributed to newsagents worldwide by: Seymour Distribution Ltd • Tel: 020 7429 4000 Distributed to bookshops by: Central Books, 99 Wallis Road, London E9 5LN • Tel: 020 8986 4854 Designed by Cog Design Literary Review is set in Adobe Caslon and Janet. The latter is a digitisation of an engraved typeface designed by the artist and typographer Reynolds Stone, and named after his wife.

Literary Review | august 2023 2

diary Frances Wilson art Peter Marshall

Albrecht Dürer: Art and Autobiography David Ekserdjian • Dürer’s Lost Masterpiece: Art and Society at the Dawn of a Global Age Ulinka Rublack Sarah Dunant

How to Be a Renaissance Woman: The Untold History of Beauty and Female Creativity Jill Burke • ‘Painted Love: Renaissance Marriage Portraits’ (Holburne Museum, Bath, until 1 October) Charles Darwent

Giacometti in Paris Michael Peppiatt follow the money Harold James

The Economic Government of the World 1933–2023 Martin Daunton David Edgerton

The World of Sugar: How the Sweet Stuff Transformed Our Politics, Health, and Environment over 2,000 Years Ulbe Bosma Martin Vander Weyer

Anansi’s Gold: The Man Who Looted the West, Outfoxed Washington, and Swindled the World Yepoka Yeebo art of writing Gillian Tindall

Lifescapes: A Biographer’s Search for the Soul Ann Wroe Valentine Cunningham

Retroland: A Reader’s Guide to the Dazzling Diversity of Modern Fiction Peter Kemp Sheena Joughin

The Writing School Miranda France history Richard Vinen

Backbone of the Nation: Mining Communities and the Great Strike of 1984–85 Robert Gildea Damian Le Bas

Europe and the Roma: A History of Fascination and Fear Klaus-Michael Bogdal • Travellers through Time: A Gypsy History Jeremy Harte Steven Nadler

Jewish Politics in Spinoza’s Amsterdam Anne O Albert Tim Stanley

Birchers: How the John Birch Society Radicalized the American Right Matthew Dallek