Cover: Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn

CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS ISSUE

• Gabriele Annan
• Julian Barnes
• John Bayley
• Howard Brenton
• Robert Crawford
• Jon Elster
• Robert Fisk
• Stephen Greenblatt
• David Landes
• Brad Leithauser
• Edward Mendelson
• Nicholas Penny
• Peter Porter
• W.G. Runciman
• Alan Ryan
• Alasdair St John
• Tom Shippey
• Johann Sommerville
• Anthony Thwaite
• Philip Towle
• Dick Wilson

Contents

• Julian Barnes

  • In Search of J.D. Salinger by Ian Hamilton

• Letters
  Diana Mosley, Jeremy Holmes, David Nokes, Richard Lansdown, Judith Kazantzis, Giles Gordon, Ted Burford

• Robert Fisk writes about Oliver North’s contributions to the ordeal of the Middle East

• Jon Elster goes to China

• Alasdair St John

  • Hong Kong by Jan Morris

• Dick Wilson

  • Riding the Iron Rooster: By Train through China by Paul Theroux
  • Discos and Democracy: China in the Throes of Reform by Orville Schell
  • The Star Raft: China’s Encounter with Africa by Philip Snow
  • Ancestors: Nine Hundred Years in the Life of a Chinese Family by Frank Ching

• Brad Leithauser
  Poem: ‘A Bowl of Chinese Fireworks’

• Tom Shippey

  • The Oxford Illustrated History of Medieval Europe edited by George Holmes
  • A History of 12th-century Western Philosophy edited by Peter Dronke
  • The Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought c.350-c.1450 edited by J.H. Burns
  • Medieval Popular Culture: Problem of Belief and Perception by Aron Gurevich, translated by Janos Bak and Paul Hollingsworth
  • A History of Private Life: Revelations of the Medieval World edited by George Duby, translated by Arthur Goldhammer

• Stephen Greenblatt

  • Inheriting Power: The Story of an Exorcist by Giovanni Levi, translated by Lydia Cochrane

• Alan Ryan

  • The Trial of Socrates by I.F. Stone

• Howard Brenton
  Poem: ‘The walls of Spandau speak’

• Robert Crawford
  Poem: ‘Robert Crawford’

• Johann Sommerville

  • The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 1500-1800 by Geoffery Parker
  • War and Society in Europe of the Old Regime: 1618-1789 by M.S. Anderson
  • Waging war: A Philosophical Introduction by Ian Clark

• Philip Towle

  • Without the Bomb: The Politics of Nuclear Non-Proliferation by Mitchell Reiss
  • Deep Black: The Secrets of Space Espionage by William Burrows
  • Democracy and Deterrence: The History and Future of Nuclear Strategy by Philip Bobbitt

• David Landes

  • The Metronomic Society: Natural Rhythms and Human Timetables by Michael Young

• Peter Porter
  Poem: ‘Serious Drinking’

• W.G. Runciman

  • Plough, Sword and Book: The Structure of Human History by Ernest Gellner

• Gabriele Annan

  • Nothing to Forgive: A Daughter’s Life of Antonia White by Lyndall Hopkinson

• John Bayley

  • Woman to Woman: Female Friendship in Victorian Fiction by Tess Cosslett
  • Sentiment and Sociability: The Language of Feeling in the Eighteenth Century by John Mullan
  • The Early Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney. Vol. I: 1768-1773 edited by Lars Troide

• Anthony Thwaite

  • Stevie Smith: A Critical Biography by Frances Spalding

• Edward Mendelson
  Diary

• Nicholas Penny

  • Rembrandt’s Enterprise: The Studio and the Market by Svetlana Alpers
  • The Light of Early Italian Painting by Paul Hills
  • Italian Paintings in the Robert Lehman Collection by John Pope-Hennessy