For Colm Tóibín and Carmen Callil there is no difference between literary and commercial writing — there is only the good novel: engrossing, inspirational, compelling. In their selection of the best 200 novels written since 1950, the editors...
In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the Mongols carved out the largest land-based empire in world history, stretching from Korea to Russia in the north and from China to Syria in the south, and unleashing an unprecedented level of violence....
Conventional histories of the battles of Mons and Le Cateau describe how, although the British were massively outnumbered, precise and rapid British rifle fire mowed down rows of German troops. The staggering German casualties made these battles...
In ancient China a monster called Taowu was known for both its vicious nature and its power to see the past and the future. Over the centuries Taowu underwent many incarnations until it became identifiable with history itself. Since the seventeenth...
That human beings have greater cosmic significance than non-human animals is pervasively believed as a self-evident truth. For millennia, we have been informed that the interests of humans count more than the interests of animals, and that the lives...
Sam Harris’s first book, The End of Faith, ignited a worldwide debate about the validity of religion. In the aftermath, Harris discovered that most people—from religious fundamentalists to non-believing scientists—agree on one point: science...
Harry Freedman, author of The Talmud: A Biography, recounts the fascinating and bloody history of the Bible.
In 1535, William Tyndale, the first man to produce an English version of the Bible in print, was captured and imprisoned in Belgium. A year...