Europe
Asia
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Americas
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Through History
A new book explores the rituals and beliefs of ��
From voyages to battles, gods to monsters, heroics to cowardice, the Viking sagas explore all of these themes in magnificent detail
John Tolan Islam A new history from Muhammad to the present 304pp. Princeton University Press. £25 (US $29.95). James McDougall Worlds of Islam A global history 608pp. Allen Lane. £40. Elizabeth Drays
What do our beloved hostelries have to do with the discovery of DNA, the D-Day landings and The Lord of the Rings ? Everything, as Ashleigh Arnott discovers
There’s plenty to criticise about that ancient approach We wouldn’t recognise the system practised in ancient Athens as democracy in the sense we understand it today. Women did not have the vote, and
In Caravaggio’s “St Matthew and the Angel” (1602), the Bible seems to arrive as a shock to those who wrote it. Matthew, bare-armed and dirty-toed, is a fisherman stranded on dry land. Everything about
Melanie McDonagh Converts From Oscar Wilde to Muriel Spark, why so many became Catholic in the 20th century 368pp. Yale University Press. £25 (US $38). Nobody likes a convert. For believers, the word