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Editor Nancy Sladek Deputy Editor Tom Fleming Editor-at-Large Jeremy Lewis Senior Editor Jonathan Beckman Chief Editorial Assistant Frank Brinkley Editorial Assistants David Gelber • Tom Williams Contributing Editors Michael Burleigh Sara Wheeler • Philip Womack Advertising Manager Terry Finnegan Classified Advertising David Sturge Marketing Assistant Katherine Bogden Bayard Founding Father Auberon Waugh Cover Illustration Chris Riddell

The Literary Review, incorporating Quarto, is published monthly from: 44 Lexington Street, London W1F 0LW • Tel: 020 7437 9392 Fax: 020 7734 1844 • ISSN 0144 4360 © 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 All advertising enquiries to: Terry Finnegan, Literary Review, 44 Lexington Street, London W1F 0LW • Tel: 020 7437 9392 Printed in the United Kingdom by: Henry Ling Ltd, at the Dorset Press, Dorchester DT1 1HD • Tel: 01305 251 066 Distributed to newsagents worldwide by: COMAG Specialist, Tavistock Works, Tavistock Rd, West Drayton, Middlesex, UB7 7QX • Tel: 01895 433 800 Distributed to bookshops by: Central Books, 99 Wallis Road, London E9 5LN • Tel: 020 8986 4854 Subscriptions: subscriptions@warnersgroup.co.uk Editorial: editorial@literaryreview.co.uk www.literaryreview.co.uk • @lit_review 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 | m a r c h 2 0 1 5 2

p u l p i t 1 John Harwood a n c i e n t wor l d 5 Tim Whitmarsh

Seneca: A Life Emily Wilson 7 Robin Lane Fox

Darius in the Shadow of Alexander Pierre Briant 9 Richard Miles

Hannibal: A Hellenistic Life Eve MacDonald b i o g r a p hy 10 Paul Johnson

Universal Man: The Seven Lives of John Maynard Keynes Richard Davenport-Hines 12 Victoria Glendinning

A Curious Friendship: The Story of a Bluestocking & a Bright Young Thing Anna Thomasson 13 John Gribbin

Half Life: The Divided Life of Bruno Pontecorvo, Physicist or Spy Frank Close memoir 14 Samantha Ellis

Late Fragments Kate Gross • Girl in the Dark Anna Lyndsey 15 Lyndall Gordon

Leaving Before the Rains Come Alexandra Fuller 15 Jeremy Lewis

Loose Connections: From Narva Maantee to Great Russell Street Esther Menell way o f the wor l d 17 Andy Martin

The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, & the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy David Graeber 18 Philip Roscoe

Cryptocurrency: How Bitcoin & Digital Money are Challenging the Global Economic Order Paul Vigna & Michael J Casey 19 Adam Roberts

The Looting Machine: Warlords, Tycoons, Smugglers, & the Systematic Theft of Africa’s Wealth Tom Burgis 21 Martin Vander Weyer

How Good We Can Be: Ending the Mercenary Society & Building a Great Country Will Hutton