Books

Clare Griffiths on a study of the whirlwind life of the flame-haired Labour minister

Book of the week: A history of the fight to share elite spaces focuses on gender over race and class, says Mary Evans

A weekly look over the shoulders of our scholar-reviewers

Celestial bodies are stripped of mystery in a lively guide that sounds a warning, says Marcus Chown

Simon Underdown on a historian contemplating future challenges arising from modern lifestyles and technology

Claims for genius require more than repeated assertion to make the case, says Martin Cohen

This provocative argument for the importance of number in the humanities is full of wit and insight, says Tony Mann

The author of Lenin on the Train reminisces about Alain-Fournier’s Le Grand Meaulnes, and talks about travel books as histories and the ‘surreal time and place’ of revolutionary Russia

Book of the week: E. Stina Lyon appreciates the social portraiture approach used to understand complex family roles

A weekly look over the shoulders of our scholar-reviewers

Cait MacPhee delves in to the stories we use to explain the simple and complex world around us

Helen Berry on the socio-economic and political drivers behind consumer culture in colonial America

Catherine Clinton on the legacy of a marginalised group in a supposedly class-free society

Victoria Bateman on why the Enlightenment took root in Europe and how it helped to spur economic expansion

Must-read monographs serve up chicken, the history of drama, gender equality in class and the mixed fortunes of Mad Men and Hollywood moguls

Elizabeth Greene on a study focusing on the American artist’s use of verse in his work

Book of the week: Hillegonda Rietveld on the fierce creative energy of Big Apple clubs in the early Eighties

Richard Murphy is enthralled by an insider’s story of a secretive profession that intensifies inequality

A. W. Purdue on the suffering of populations of multi-ethnic empires in the years after the Great War

The neuroscientist, broadcaster and author of A Day in the Life of the Brain holds forth on pony tales, Giuseppe di Lampedusa's Leopard, Thucydides and The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

A weekly look over the shoulders of our scholar-reviewers

A fine ethnography reveals how poor Angelenos and the cops control each other, says Dick Hobbs

David Wheeler applauds a critique of the impact of neoliberal forces on higher education

Book of the week: Rachel Bowlby tracks the impact of a strange and foreign novel across languages and culture

Tales of marooned mariners helped Britain to see itself as a global power, A. W. Purdue hears

The eminent physicist plays a valuable role as provocateur, challenging those in his field to defend and hone their theories, says Marcus Chown

Tomes deserving of your time include our island story in art, rescuing religion from jihadis and Islamophobes, going to town on an egg and a veritable word-fest

Money buys compliance, and a few shots of Confucianism help too, says Jonathan Mirsky

A weekly look over the shoulders of our scholar-reviewers

Emma Rees is happily lost in a Sixties’ soundscape but wonders why there are so few female artists

Robert Eaglestone on an insightful investigation of how we experience contemporary life

Lisa Mckenzie admires the powerful use of the graphic novel to tell the story of Louise Michel, a 19th-century revolutionary feminist

The legal scholar and nudger-in-chief on Marvel Comics, where to begin with behavioural economics, and Star Wars and President Obama

Book of the week: University costs embed inequality and exact a painful toll on individuals, Sorana Vieru says

A weekly look over the shoulders of our scholar-reviewers

Having newshounds verify assertions does not in itself untangle complicated issues, Ivor Gaber says

Clive Bloom on the utopians who struggled to realise their dream of a building a secular socialist Jewish state in Europe

Book of the week: If all-seeing ‘miracle’ tech is making the decisions we must demystify the tricks, says Danny Dorling

From Fox News to the race for the White House, this work is all about politics, says Sharon Wheeler

A weekly look over the shoulders of our scholar-reviewers

Angelia Wilson on how vulnerability means profitability when deregulation and privatisation come to health and social care

Young scholars tell it like it is but is knowledge of replaceability a bar to change? asks Finn Mackay

A crow named Betty is one of the highlights in a fascinating study of an exciting area of research, says Tim Birkhead

This week’s bookish things to do: brush up your Shakespeare, explore a mother of a holiday, put paid to the rentiers and count the cost of London’s Olympics

Richard J. Williams on how big data may transform how we live, travel and work in our towns

This survey covers the main trends in Holocaust studies but it would have benefited from a more international scope, says Neil Gregor

Fragmented images and light and shadow haunt a study of grief and memory, says Janet Sayers

Carla Hesse on a lively study examining the French thinker’s first intellectual passion

The literary scholar and author of Orwell's Nose: A Pathological Biography on Rider Haggard, the River Stour and Moby-Dick

Book of the week: The decision process behind the euro has left the EU in an untenable position, says Lucia Quaglia

A weekly look over the shoulders of our scholar-reviewers

Book of the week: Deborah Longworth meanders with female writer-walkers getting their measure of the metropolis

A weekly look over the shoulders of our scholar-reviewers

From climate change to artificial intelligence, constructal law has a theory, says Richard Joyner

Helen Bynum on a study of current immunisation practices in North America and the rise of the home-grown expert

Paul Bernal on a vital and comprehensive survey of how our era of ubiquitous observation arose

Seeking a deep conversation between Scripture and the Bard’s works is a fool’s errand, argues Peter J. Smith

The score on Brian Eno, the struggles of America’s down and out in cheap motels, and how our forebears slept

Dana Ruggiero on new ways of thinking about how to construct gaming experiences that allow people to help tackle intractable challenges

Explaining how skilled individuals deliver a peak performance is a thorny task, Jane O’Grady says