contents
july 2021 • issue 498
Editor Nancy Sladek Deputy Editor Tom Fleming Assistant Editors Frank Brinkley • 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 from: 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 | july 2021 2
diary 1 D J Taylor
history 6 John Adamson
The Fall of Robespierre: 24 Hours in Revolutionary Paris Colin Jones 8 Tim Stanley
King Richard: Nixon & Watergate – an American Tragedy Michael Dobbs 9 Maurice Frank
Blood and Iron: The Rise & Fall of the German Empire 1871–1918 Katja Hoyer • Blood and Diamonds: Germany’s Imperial Ambitions in Africa Steven Press 11 Keith Lowe
The Glass Wall: Lives on the Baltic Frontier Max Egremont 13 David Abulafia
City of Illusions: A History of Granada Helen Rodgers & Stephen Cavendish
flora & fauna 14 Julian Baggini
How to Love Animals in a Human-Shaped World Henry Mance 15 Charlie Pye-Smith
Jungle: How Tropical Forests Shaped the World – & Us Patrick Roberts • A Trillion Trees: How We Can Reforest Our World Fred Pearce
poetry 17 William Wootten Encounters with Walter de la Mare
art & architecture 18 Tanya Harrod
Sophie Taeuber-Arp: Living Abstraction Anne Umland & Walburga Krupp, with Charlotte Healy (edd) • Sophie Taeuber-Arp: A Life through Art Silvia Boadella 19 William Whyte
Clean Living Under Difficult Circumstances: Finding a Home in the Ruins of Modernism Owen Hatherley • Mass Housing: Modern Architecture & State Power – a Global History Miles Glendinning
open minds 21 Cal Flyn
Retreat: The Risks & Rewards of Stepping Back from the World Nat Segnit 22 A J Lees
This is Your Mind on Plants: Opium – Caffeine – Mescaline Michael Pollan
