Volume 74 Issue 8 August 2024

‘All His Spies’ and ‘Spycraft’ review

All His Spies: The Secret World of Robert Cecil and Spycraft: Tricks and Tools of the Dangerous Trade from Elizabeth I to the Restoration bring Tudor and Stuart espionage in from the cold.

‘Final Verdict’ by Tobias Buck review

As the last living perpetrators are brought to justice, Final Verdict: A Holocaust Trial in the Twenty-first Century by Tobias Buck wonders what purpose the prosecution of Bruno Dey serves.

The ‘Experts’ from Afghanistan

Britain’s dearth of Afghan informants provided an opportunity for a disinherited Indian prince and his son to present themselves as an authentic conduit to the Muslim world. Soon they were advising the nation on subjects from geopolitics to the powers of the occult.

Japan, the West and the Treaty of Versailles

At the outset of the 1919 Paris Peace Conference Japan enjoyed a seat at the top table, but the vexed issue of racial equality set it and its notional Western allies on different paths.

A Dangerous Game on the Jacobean Stage

For nine days Thomas Middleton’s A Game at Chess was the greatest box office phenomenon of the English Renaissance. Then a warrant was issued for his arrest.