Being German, Becoming Muslim: Race, Religion, and Conversion in the New Europe, by Esra Özyürek Ursula King on a profile of the many faces of Islam in one country 19 March
The Third Reich in History and Memory, by Richard J. Evans An eminent scholar’s sure-footed essays serve to take the temperature of the field, says Neil Gregor 19 March
How to Write a Thesis, by Umberto Eco This guide gets right to the heart of the virtues that make a scholar, Robert Eaglestone discovers 19 March
Teaching Machines: Learning from the Intersection of Education and Technology, by Bill Ferster The use of gadgets to help students is only as effective as the pedagogical methods employed, finds Steve Wheeler 12 March
Who’s Afraid of Academic Freedom?, edited by Akeel Bilgrami and Jonathan R. Cole Miriam E. David urges scholars to engage with essays contributing to wider political debates 12 March
Back to the Garden: Nature and the Mediterranean World from Prehistory to the Present, by James H. S. McGregor Laurence Coupe on an ambitious and challenging exploration of the ecology of the past 12 March
Lord Byron and Scandalous Celebrity, by Clara Tuite Jane Stabler on a fascinating account of the aristocrat-poet’s fame 12 March
Half Life: The Divided Life of Bruno Pontecorvo, Physicist or Spy, by Frank Close A biography of a secretive scientist comes with a cast worthy of a le Carré novel, says Jon Turney 12 March
Katerina Deligiorgi, Helen Fulton, Sir John Holman, Karen McAulay and Ruth Mieschbuehler... A weekly look over the shoulders of our scholar-reviewers 12 March
The Black Box Society: The Secret Algorithms that Control Money and Information, by Frank Pasquale The big players in finance and technology misuse their power over our lives, says Paul Bernal 12 March
Eternal Ephemera: Adaptation and the Origin of Species from the Nineteenth Century Through Punctuated Equilibria and Beyond, by Niles Eldredgeh Simon Underdown on a tale of the development of evolutionary theory 12 March
Against the Troika: Crisis and Austerity in the Eurozone, by Heiner Flassbeck and Costas Lapavitsas Vasilis Leontitsis weighs arguments for economic reform co-written by a scholar turned Syriza MP 5 March
Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands, by Richard Sakwa John Barber on a powerful critique of Western policy 5 March
Blood Runs Green: The Murder That Transfixed Gilded Age Chicago, by Gillian O’Brien Sharon Wheeler relishes the detailed research in this true crime tale 5 March
Deborah Cohen, Helen Fulton, Liz Gloyn, Stephen Halliday and R. C. Richardson... A weekly look over the shoulders of our scholar-reviewers 5 March
Rebel Footprints: A Guide to Uncovering London’s Radical History, by David Rosenberg An engaging account of an unruly city, but why so little on Empire, wonders Danny Dorling 5 March
The Least Likely Man: Marshall Nirenberg and the Discovery of the Genetic Code, by Franklin H. Portugal Charalambos Kyriacou lauds this account of the life of a humble Nobelist 5 March
Tetralogue: I’m Right, You’re Wrong, by Timothy Williamson Catarina Dutilh Novaes on an investigation of the merits and limits of rational debate 5 March
The Undersea Network, by Nicole Starosielski John Gilbey is fascinated by the unseen fibre-optic communications cables that gird the globe 5 March
The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time: A Proposal in Natural Philosophy, by Roberto Mangabeira Unger and Lee Smolin The authors’ case for a cosmology in crisis is infinitely plausible, finds Jon Turney 26 February
The Roma: A Balkan Underclass, by Jelena Čvorović Jelena Obradovic-Wochnik baulks at the questionable assertions in a polemic about traveller communities 26 February
Death in the Congo: Murdering Patrice Lumumba, by Emmanuel Gerard and Bruce Kuklick Joanna Lewis on the assassination of the nation’s first democratically elected leader 26 February
Landmarks, by Robert Macfarlane Laurence Coupe relishes inspiring reflections on the natural world’s relationship with language 26 February
Birth of a Theorem: A Mathematical Adventure, by Cédric Villani The lows and highs of a ‘rock star’ scholar cracking an impossible problem enthral Noel-Ann Bradshaw 26 February
Robert Eaglestone, Liz Gloyn, Sandra Leaton Gray, Dennis Hayes and Janet Sayers... A weekly look over the shoulders of our scholar-reviewers 26 February
Speech Matters: On Lying, Morality, and the Law, by Seana Valentine Shiffrin To ensure freedom and public trust, institutions must prioritise veracity, says Andrew Hadfield 26 February
Nightwalking: A Nocturnal History of London, by Matthew Beaumont Peter J. Smith on the literary giants who have drawn inspiration from their nocturnal perambulations 26 February
Ritual, Performance, and Politics in the Ancient Near East, by Lauren Ristvet Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones on the drama that formed and maintained Near Eastern civilisations 26 February
Locus of Authority: The Evolution of Faculty Roles in the Governance of Higher Education, by William G. Bowen and Eugene M. Tobin Ferdinand von Prondzynski ponders an exploration of how universities should be led and by whom 26 February
The Devil Wins: A History of Lying from the Garden of Eden to the Enlightenment, by Dallas G. Denery II Biancamaria Fontana finds out how the telling of fibs went from being a sin to a social skill 26 February
Claire Ashmore, Danny Dorling, Liz Gloyn, Sandra Leaton Gray and June Purvis... A weekly look over the shoulders of our scholar-reviewers 19 February
How Good We Can Be: Ending the Mercenary Society and Building a Great Country, by Will Hutton Top-down ideas narrow a New Labour architect’s vision of a brave new Britain, says Philip Roscoe 19 February
The Poet’s Tale: Chaucer and the Year that Made The Canterbury Tales, by Paul Strohm A gripping pilgrimage towards a seminal period in the genesis of a literary classic, says Elizabeth Scala 19 February
Radical Feminism: Feminist Activism in Movement, by Finn Mackay Lynne Segal on one woman’s efforts to revitalise a political force 19 February
Hitler’s First Victims and One Man’s Race for Justice, by Timothy W. Ryback A German lawyer’s experience brings home the horrors of early Nazification, writes Hester Vaizey 19 February
The Lost Elements: The Periodic Table’s Shadow Side, by Marco Fontani, Mariagrazia Costa and Mary Virginia Orna Peter Wothers revels in a treasure trove of ‘wrong’ chemistry and great history 19 February
Vinyl: The Analogue Record in the Digital Age, by Dominik Bartmanski and Ian Woodward News of the death of the iconic disc has been greatly exaggerated, says Hillegonda C. Rietveld 19 February
To Explain The World: The Discovery of Modern Science, by Steven Weinberg A history of the steps humans took to explain how and why things work delights Cait MacPhee 19 February
Enemy in the East: Hitler’s Secret Plans to Invade the Soviet Union, by Rolf-Dieter Müller Robert Gellately on an examination of the role of the Wehrmacht leadership 12 February
Sex Versus Survival: The Life and Ideas of Sabina Spielrein, by John Launer Janet Sayers admires a detective-like tale of the psychoanalyst and her involvement with Jung and Freud 12 February
Citizen Coke: The Making of Coca-Cola Capitalism, by Bartow J. Elmore Isabelle Szmigin on the not-so secret formula underpinning a highly profitable global model 12 February
Sandra Leaton Gray, Stephen Halliday, A. W. Purdue, R. C. Richardson and Sharon Wheeler... A weekly look over the shoulders of our scholar-reviewers 12 February
Universities at War, by Thomas Docherty This powerful polemic should be in every undergraduate’s welcome pack, says Mary Evans 12 February
Mathematics without Apologies: Portrait of a Problematic Vocation, by Michael Harris Tony Mann discovers the charisma of mathematicians 12 February
Between Two Worlds: How the English Became Americans, by Malcolm Gaskill Donald M. MacRaild on the English colonists’ determination to hold on to their identity in the New World 12 February
Neuroscience for Leadership: Harnessing the Brain Gain Advantage, by Tara Swart, Kitty Chisholm and Paul Brown A manual for ambitious executives is dangerously close to spreading neuromyths, says Steven Rose 12 February
Susan Bassnett, Clare Debenham, Richard Howells, Sandra Leaton Gray and Sharon Wheeler... A weekly look over the shoulders of our scholar-reviewers 5 February
Plucked: A History of Hair Removal, by Rebecca M. Herzig There’s a piggy in the middle of this gripping tale of depilation, finds Emma Rees 5 February
Huxley’s Church & Maxwell’s Demon: From Theistic Science to Naturalistic Science, by Matthew Stanley Simon Underdown on the complicated process by which science replaced religion as means of explaining the world 5 February
Sartre: A Philosophical Biography, by Thomas R. Flynn Jane O’Grady on a survey of Sartre’s works and politics, and the contradictions they contained 5 February
Making Space: How the Brain Knows Where Things Are, by Jennifer M. Groh A detailed study of perception is a valuable primer on the subject, finds Tristan Bekinschtein 5 February
Europe Entrapped, by Claus Offe A German sociologist proposes that EU reform should be in the direction of revival, growth and social justice, explains Roger Morgan 5 February
Poets and the Peacock Dinner: The Literary History of a Meal, by Lucy McDiarmid Sandeep Parmar on an elaborate account of one moment in Modernism 5 February
Sea of Storms: A History of Hurricanes in the Greater Caribbean from Columbus to Katrina, by Stuart B. Schwartz Call it a ‘hypercane’ or a ‘weather bomb’, we’re as much at its mercy as ever, writes Philip Hoare 5 February
Sex in China, by Elaine Jeffreys with Haiqing Yu Jonathan Mirsky on a revealing study about the roots of changes in sexual habits 29 January
Songs of the Factory: Pop Music, Culture, and Resistance, by Marek Korczynski Les Gofton admires an ethnographic study exploring how workers escape the daily grind 29 January
A Scientist in Wonderland: A Memoir of Searching for Truth and Finding Trouble, by Edzard Ernst Helen Bynum admires a physician’s quest to distinguish alternative medicine from quackery 29 January
Sir David Bell, Sir David Eastwood, Sandra Leaton Gray, Jon May and Juan C. Moreno-Cabrera... A weekly look over the shoulders of our scholar-reviewers 29 January
Wikipedia U: Knowledge, Authority and Liberal Education in the Digital Age, by Thomas Leitch Research tools have been revolutionised by the internet but, asks John Gilbey, are they reliable? 29 January
Caught: The Prison State and the Lockdown of American Politics, by Marie Gottschalk Angelia Wilson on a prison system that has eroded democratic institutions and exacerbated social injustices 29 January
