In 1981, Leszek Kolakowski began the introduction to the first volume of his magisterial trilogy Main Currents of Marxism with the statement ‘Karl Marx was a German philosopher.’ If we add ‘who lived ...

Frankly, it was a triumph. Eight hundred people had gathered in the Barclays MegaCash Pavilion at the Hay Festival to hear me talk about my latest book. I was a little nervous, as I am accustomed to ...

The Smile Jamaica Concert, scheduled for 5 December 1976, was intended as a celebration of Jamaican unity: in the National Heroes Park in Kingston, the most famous living Jamaican, Bob Marley, would ...

Western Europe is in the grip of a cultural illness that is sapping its will to live, claims Douglas Murray in this hard-hitting polemic. Unprecedented levels of immigration, especially from the ...

Born in 1940, Angela Carter has published eight novels including The Magic Toyshop (1967, John Llewellyn Rhys Prize), Several Perceptions (1968, Somerset Maugham Award), Love (1971), The Infernal ...

At one point in Defining Hitler its author asks the reader the rhetorical question: why bother to read this book? For many writers this would be a merited act of authorial self-destruction. In Haffner ...

Tintin, wonderfully, survives and thrives. The centenary of Hergé’s birth approaches, the books are still in print in countless languages, and soon Steven Spielberg’s Tintin film will be out, a ...

For Edward Gibbon, the decline of the Roman Empire was a matter of blame. He did not hesitate to condemn a fatal combination of violent barbarian invasion and the growing popularity of Christianity ...

The Byzantine Empire has never had a good press, but few things in its long history have given rise to more controversy than its relations with the crusades. The First Crusade is an epic story, on a ...

Imagine a situation in which, for thirty-five years, the English experienced unprecedented levels of engagement with Continental Europe. In consequence, they came to enjoy greater prosperity than they ...

When Hitler sent Rommel to north Africa in January 1941, Nazi interest in the Arab world burgeoned. From then until the end of the war the Third Reich invested heavily in trying to win over Muslim ...

Sebastian Horsley is an artist, writer and libertine. He’s the grubby/moderately brighter equivalent of the model/actor. He’s slept with 1,000 hookers and he’s flown to the Philippines to be crucified ...