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

“This tremendous aggregate of a book has many of the characteristics of a Festschrift assembled to honour some Great Influencer”: so, in 1973, the architectural historian Priscilla Metcalf began the f

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

At the time of writing, immigrants were the Number One topic worldwide. DISCLOSURE: I have been twice a migrant, once to Australia, thence to Canada where I have dual citizenship. What does all this m

Has the United States always been an imperial power? Edward Stourton offers his insight on the history of the Land of the Free

How England Began: From Roman Britain to the ...