Category Archives: Reviews

The Spectator World Magazine – March 16, 2026

THE SPECTATOR WORLD: The latest issue features ‘The Greater Game’ – Trump’s ultimate target in this war is China says Geoffrey Cain…

Trump’s ultimate target in this war is China

Geoffrey Cain

The United States and Israel killed Ayatollah Khamenei, and Xi Jinping’s decade-long project to build an alternative to the American-led order died with him. For years, Beijing quietly assembled a network of dictatorships and client states designed to blunt American power. Iran supplied China with cheap oil and kept Washington bogged down in the Middle

The Iran war has exacerbated the failure of European energy policies

Daniel McCarthy

The history of the global trading system is a story of narrow and vulnerable waterways: the Suez and Panama Canals, the St. Lawrence Seaway, the Straits of Dover and the Skagerrak, which defends the entrance to the Baltic. But none has the power to seize up the global economy as much as the Strait of…..

I spent 25 years fighting neocons. Then Trump became one

Like everyone, I’m glued to the news coming out of Iran. I’m experiencing some depression, as one might, upon realizing that much of what one has worked on for 25 years has suddenly gone up in smoke, destroyed when Donald Trump discovered he was pretty much a neocon after all. Like everyone else, I have…

America’s last war in the Middle East

Win or lose, Donald Trump has begun the last war the United States is ever likely to fight in the Middle East. That might sound wildly optimistic, but what it really means is that war with Iran has been decades in the making. If the mission succeeds, it will mark the end of an era.

Inside MAGA’s meltdown over Iran

Freddy Gray

When President George W. Bush invaded Mesopotamia in 2003, everybody laughed at Comical Ali, the bespectacled Iraqi information minister who kept insisting that the American “rats” were doomed as Saddam Hussein’s regime collapsed around him. The world moved on. Iran is not Iraq, as President Donald Trump’s supporters are so fond of saying, and Bush-eraOwen Matthews

Will Turkey intervene in Iran?

With the exception so far of a single missile intercepted over Turkish airspace and a strike on an Azeri-controlled territory near the Iranian border, Tehran has so far declined to mess with the Turks, and for good reasons. Turkey is a member of NATO and attacking it would trigger Article 5 mutual defense measures. And

The Nation Magazine – APRIL 2026 Preview

The Nation

THE NATION MAGAZINE: The latest issue features ‘Trump’s New World Disorder’ – His stranglehold is producing planetary chaos and destruction…

How Marco Rubio Went From Neocon “It” Boy to Top MAGA Lieutenant

Rubio’s transformation may say as much about neoconservatism as it does about the man himself.

The Iran War Is a Disaster for Gaza

How the crisis leaves Gaza’s 2 million people more friendless, isolated, and vulnerable than ever before.

Mohammed R. Mhawish

George Packer’s Liberal Imagination

What happens when liberalism’s crisis is made into a fable? 

The Greatest Love Is Grieving

I spent years as a labor organizer. Marguerite Duras’s war novel taught me that the strongest fighters are always the women hurting the most.

Haley Mlotek

THE NEW YORKER MAGAZINE – MARCH 16, 2026 PREVIEW

Trump is standing in his golf card dressed in military clothes.

THE NEW YORKER MAGAZINE: The latest issue features ‘Barry Blitt’s “War-a-Lago” – No Nobel Peace Prize in sight.

Where Is the Iran War Headed?

President Trump has both called for Iranians to rise up and oust the ruthless theocracy and then said that he’s fully prepared to deal with a new religious leader. By Robin Wright

The Zombie Regulator

As the cost of living continues to spiral upward, the Trump Administration is gutting the government agency built to protect Americans from financial ruin. By E. Tammy Kim

The Unmaking of the American University

For decades, research universities have relied on federal funding, with no guarantee that it will last. Now their survival may depend on compliance with the government. By Nicholas Lemann

Literary Review Of Canada – April 2026 Preview

Literary Review of Canada The latest issue features…

To Review, or Not to Review

Dwindling serendipity in the age of the algorithmKyle Wyatt

They Desire a Better System

Share the burden, perhaps?Aaron Wherry

House of Card

When the saints came marching inMichael Ledger-Lomas

Behind the Wire

The enemies we invented and internedJ.L. Granatstein

THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE- MARCH 8, 2026

Current cover

THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE: The 3.8.26 Issue features Matthieu Aikins and Wesley Morgan on the former Zero Unit soldiers who are now living in the U.S.; Sophie Haigney on love addiction; Robert Draper on his experience taking ibogaine; and more.

They Fought for the C.I.A. in Afghanistan. In America, They’re Living in Fear.

A shooting in Washington, D.C., threw their immigration status into jeopardy — and brought attention to a long-hidden dimension of America’s war.

Renters Made Mamdani Mayor. Can He Remake the City for Them?

His call to ‘freeze the rent’ galvanized the 69 percent of New Yorkers who don’t own their homes. But the city’s landlords claim the math doesn’t add up. By Jonathan Mahler

In a World Order Defined by Trump, the Key to Europe’s Defense Is Germany

In the wake of the U.S. bombing of Iran and its dismissal of European allies, an anxious continent’s best chance at security runs through its largest economy. By Elisabeth Zerofsky

Maggie Gyllenhaal on Envy, Rage and Reaching Out to Her Brother

With a big budget and a lot to say, the filmmaker is unleashing her inner monster with “The Bride!” By Lulu Garcia-Navarro

SCIENCE MAGAZINE —- MARCH 5, 2026

SCIENCE MAGAZINE: The latest issue features ‘Bottleneck Recovery’ – Population expansion and genetic reshuffling in koalas…

Stem cell therapies ‘come of age’ with two conditional approvals in Japan

Induced pluripotent stem cells could help treat diseased hearts and brains

AI and quantum now drive NSF grantmaking, officials say

Leaders acknowledge White House role in recent controversial moves

U.S. research agency moves to restrict foreign scientists

Proposed rule at National Institute of Standards and Technology would limit lab access to a few years

Why three scientists said no to Epstein

The warning signs included a web search, a mother’s doubts, and inklings of a “sexist attitude”

THE ECONOMIST MAGAZINE – MARCH 7, 2026 PREVIEW

THE ECONOMIST MAGAZINE: The latest issue features A war without a strategy‘….

Donald Trump must stop soon

His ill-considered conflict risks descending into chaos

AI danger gets real

The squabble between America’s government and Anthropic makes an AI disaster more likely

China needs a more ambitious growth target

Otherwise a fourth year of deflation awaits

It’s time to unleash Europe’s pensions

One reform offers both security in old age and dynamism now

Nigel Farage and Zack Polanski: best of frenemies

Britain’s twin populists have a symbiotic relationship

THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS – MARCH 26, 2026

THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS: The latest issue features Anne Enright on a day in Jeffrey Epstein’s life, Jacob Weisberg on the Great Crash, Ingrid D. Rowland on Giorgia Meloni alla fresco, Robert G. Kaiser on Citizen Bezos, Marilynne Robinson on two-party tyranny, Catherine Nicholson on the first diarist, Nathan Thrall on a lost Hebrew classic about the Nakba, David Cole on the fate of affirmative action, Aaron Matz on satire, Orville Schell on Chiang Kai-shek, Mark Lilla on a nineteenth-century protofascist, a poem by Patricia Lockwood, and much more.

‘The Devil Himself’

Sifting through a single day of Jeffrey Epstein’s emails reveals a surprising amount about the man and his many enablers.

Tick, Tick…Boom!

Andrew Ross Sorkin’s history of the 1929 stock market crash reminds us that financial bubbles are inevitable—and that another one may be about to pop.

1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History—and How It Shattered a Nation by Andrew Ross Sorkin

Post Mortem

When Jeff Bezos bought The Washington Post in 2013 and promised to find inventive ways to make journalism profitable in the digital age, he seemed like a godsend. He wasn’t.

Rembrandt’s DNA

The Leiden Collection—one of the largest private collections of Dutch art in the world—was conceived as a “lending library for Old Masters,” animated by the humanist spirit found in Rembrandt’s paintings.

Art and Life in Rembrandt’s Time: Masterpieces from the Leiden Collection – an exhibition at the H’ART Museum, Amsterdam, April 9–August 24, 2025, and the Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida, October 25, 2025—March 29, 2026

The Leiden Collection Online Catalogue, Fourth Edition edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. and Elizabeth Nogrady

THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY – MARCH 6, 2026 PREVIEW

THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY: The latest issue features ‘War On Iran’ – The global consequences of Trump’s big gamble. Plus Can the Louvre recover its joie de vivre?

Some weeks I head out of the office on a Friday afternoon with an uneasy feeling that our best-laid plans for next week’s Guardian Weekly might not look quite the same by Monday. This was one of those weeks.

While the scope and power of the US-Israel attack on Iran – not least the successful targeting of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several other senior leaders – took many by surprise, the drums of war had been building for a while. With hindsight, last week’s failed nuclear talks may simply have been cover for what was to come.

As war unfurled dramatically across the Middle East, it was impossible to predict the consequences on a range of fronts, from the likelihood of regime change in Iran to the impact on America’s regional allies under attack, or the ripple effect on global energy prices and disruption to international travel.

Spotlight | Can the Louvre rediscover its joie de vivre?
After a heist and the departure of its boss, the famous Paris museum is wrestling with repairs, strikes and a criticised renovation plan, reports Jon Henley

Science | Do lizards hold the key to how nature works?
The emergence of a new group of common wall lizards offers an insight into how variety within nature can help conserve species, writes Roberto García-Roa

Interview | The world according to Gavin Newsom
He’s the Democratic politician with movie-star looks, dogged by accusations of being a smooth‑talking elitist. But Gavin Newsom may just win the most powerful office in the world. Jonathan Freedland finds out why

Opinion | Labour needs to wake up to the dawning of a new political era
After last week’s disastrous showing in a byelection, the government must accept voters no longer want two-party politics, argues John Harris

Culture | The wild and witty paintings of Rose Wylie
Roaring into her 90s, the rebellious artist is now sought after by galleries worldwide and her works fetch huge sums. Melissa Denes visited her studio

LITERARY REVIEW ———- MARCH 2026 PREVIEW

LITERARY REVIEW : The latest issue features Richard Vinen on the General Strike * George Prochnik on Chaim Soutine * Michele Pridmore-Brown on the fertility industry * Peter Davidson on John Aubrey * Joan Smith on Gisèle Pelicot * Piers Brendon on Kathleen Harriman * Jonathan Keates on the Venetian Ghetto * Erik Linstrum on Asante gold * Zoe Guttenplan on road signs * Holly E J Black on illustration * Michael Burleigh on the Arctic * Frances Cairncross on corporate scandals * Andrew Seaton on wind power

Not Funny, Not Forgotten

The historian A J P Taylor was at Oxford during the general strike of 1926. After it, he later recalled, relations between the minority of undergraduates, such as himself, who had gone to help the strikers and those who had signed on as special constables or volunteer strike-breakers were cordial. Only those sensible men who had stuck to their books and essays were disdained. The whole episode seemed funny in a stereotypically English way – like a Punch cartoon brought to life.

Chaim Soutine: Genius, Obsession, and a Dramatic Life in Art

By Celeste Marcus

The artist Chaim Soutine was obsessed with Rembrandt’s painting of a flayed and headless ox. After managing at the age of twenty, in 1913, to get from Smilovichi, a shtetl in present-day Belarus, to Paris, Soutine made many visits to the Louvre to study the canvas. In the mid-1920s, he decided to translate it into his own idiom: a voluminous impasto, churning with deep, febrile … 

Cash Cow: How the Maternal Body Became a Global Commodity – and the Hidden Costs for Women

By Alev Scott

Fuelled by desire and desperation, and considerable hucksterism, the global fertility industry is sometimes seen as having kinship with the sex trade. Its critics are keen to point out that it’s saturated with eugenicist values and geographic exploitation. In a not atypical scenario, a handful of ‘white eggs’ are purchased … 

John Aubrey at four hundred

Whenever I approach the blind corner on the path south of my house in Oxford, I ring my clear-toned bicycle bell and think of John Aubrey, who noted in the 17th century that church bells sound clearer after rain (which was true for my little bell today). I have often also passed on to tense students approaching their final exams Aubrey’s excellent advice that you are ‘more apt to study’ if you’ve played a gentle game of real tennis (or some less real modern equivalent). And whenever I find…