Making Empire: Ireland, Imperialism and the Early Modern World Jane Ohlmeyer, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023, 368pps., hb, $36 On 1 May 1169, thirty Anglo-Norman knights landed at Bannow strand in County Wexford, to aid the usurped Diarmait MacMurrough reclaim the throne of Leinster. There had always been interactions among the Isles, but those knights… Continue reading
Posts Tagged → Edmund Burke
The goodness of King George
George III – The Life and Reign of Britain’s Most Misunderstood Monarch Andrew Roberts, London: Allen Lane, 2021, 758pps, £35 Andrew Roberts is renowned for Winston Churchill scholarship, starting with the lacerating Eminent Churchillians of 1994 and culminating in 2018 with his exemplary Churchill: Walking with Destiny. But he has always had other interests, as… Continue reading
Chronicling the Conservatives
The Conservatives – A History Robin Harris, London: Bantam Press, 2012 Robin Harris brings to his account of the Conservative Party not just impressive erudition but also many years’ inside experience of how the party operates and ‘feels’. He is a former director of the Conservative Research Department and government political adviser, and was a… Continue reading
Beauty seen, beauty sought – Beauty by Stefan Sagmeister and Jessica Walsh
BEAUTY SEEN, BEAUTY SOUGHT Beauty, Stefan Sagmeister & Jessica Walsh, Phaidon: London, 2018, hb, 280pps “A thing of beauty is a joy forever” Keats effused in Endymion – “Its loveliness increases; it will never pass into nothingness.” His 1818 poem about the shepherd so handsome he was beloved by immortals was poorly received, and Keats… Continue reading