News and reviews

Climate by Proxy reviewed in the LRB

Added on 07/05/2026

Proxies stand in for something or someone else: a press secretary stands in for a politician; the number of citations a scientific paper gets stands in for its significance; the rise or fall of Gross Domestic Product stands in for the overall health of the economy.

The Rise and Fall of Rational Control review in the LRB

Added on 07/05/2026

Harvey C. Mansfield, a professor of government at Harvard from 1962 until his retirement from teaching in 2023 at the age of 91, has never shirked any opportunity to burnish his reputation as a conservative ogre. His interventions in the campus culture wars have been plentiful, memorable and clumsy.

Enshittification mentioned in the New Scientist

Added on 05/05/2026

A decision by NHS England to withdraw open-source code created with UK taxpayer funds because of the risk posed by computer-hacking AI models is attracting growing backlash.

Control Science reviewed in the Financial Times

Added on 04/05/2026

At the centre of Henry Snow’s book stands Jeremy Bentham’s proposed prison-rotunda, the Panopticon.
Snow reminds us that the idea of a building designed round a central inspection tower “was a workplace before it was a prison”, the brainchild of the philosopher’s mechanically minded younger brother, Samuel.

Iran and the Revolution reviewed in the Guardian

Added on 04/05/2026

As Wordsworth found in Paris after 1789, revolutions are deeply enthralling. There is nothing so bold, so self-sacrificing, so brave, so cruel as a revolutionary crowd. What’s more, revolutions have shaped the modern world.

The End of Vodka featured in the Observer

Added on 03/05/2026

If you thought merchandise inspired by Frida Kahlo had reached its peak in 2018 with a controversial “Frida” Barbie doll, complete with floral headpiece and braided hair, think again.

Where the Earth Meets the Sky reviewed in the Mail on Sunday

Added on 03/05/2026

Picture the scene – you’re cross-country skiing across an icy snowscape: just you, the frozen sea and a ‘group of tobogganing Adelie penguins’. As you pass, they waddle over, curious to see what you are doing. Deciding that you’re probably all right, they continue tobogganing on their bellies alongside you as you ski back to your camp.

Decoding the Hand reviewed in the TLS

Added on 01/05/2026

During the occult revival of the nineteenth century, hundreds of palm-readers promised thousands of clients insights into their personalities and futures.

Travels Through the Spanish Civil War reviewed in the TLS

Added on 01/05/2026

Nick Lloyd, who runs tours on the Spanish Civil War (1936–9) in Barcelona, confesses that new volumes on the war are ubiquitous, and that it features in the Spanish press every day. Writing a genuinely engrossing book on the subject, as he has, is therefore no mean feat.

Nuclear Weapons reviewed in the TLS

Added on 01/05/2026

On the morning of October 30, 1961, scientists at Kew Observatory in southwest London detected an unusual air pressure wave. Its spokesman told The Times that it was “the largest such recording I have ever known”.

A Better Death reviewed in Church Times

Added on 01/05/2026

Side by side these two books appear counter-intuitive. The defender of legalised assisted dying is a well-known Jewish rabbi, whereas its strident adversary is a secular philosopher.

Converts reviewed in the Morning Star

Added on 26/04/2026

One of the most common assumptions within the social science is that the more that societies grow, develop and industrialise the less religious and the more secular they will be. And in the initial decades of, say, the western industrialised nations there was a fair amount of evidence to support this as an overall thesis.