A generous and fair review of Anthony Kaldellis’ 1453 by @pratinavanil.bsky.social (and a good read on its own account). I got my copy back in May and managed to scribble notes all through it. I also forgot to press ‘send’ on this last weekend.
Pratinav Anil
@pratinavanil.bsky.social
historian, feuilletonist, clubland habitué, judgemental judge
The Land Where Nothing Works by Anthony Hopkins and Yesterday by Brian Harrison are featured in this @thetimes.com piece by @pratinavanil.bsky.social. Read the full review here (£):
Is Britain really the land where nothing works?
thetimes.com
Such folie de grandeur is not a Trumpian aberration but a longstanding American habit. The US has long treated geography as something between a suggestion and a shopping list. (£) www.thetimes.com/culture/book... By @pratinavanil.bsky.social
How blood, luck and smart property deals turned the US into a big country
Clement Knox in The Scramble for America shows how a scrappy band of 13 colonies fought and bought its way to superpower size
thetimes.com
‘Despite Gandhi’s obsession with national unity, at the time of her death India was more unstable, more violent and more divided than at any moment since Partition.’ @pratinavanil.bsky.social on Indira Gandhi. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Pratinav Anil · ‘Indira is India’
Being underestimated was Indira Gandhi’s chief political asset. The Congress elders who helped her become India’s...
lrb.co.uk
ако ви е интересен този брутален период от съвременната история на Индия, "Крехко равновесие" от Рохинтън Мистри е безстрашен и много увлекателен роман по темата, преведен абсолютно великолепно от @vilervale.bsky.social
London Review of Books@lrb.co.uk · 4mo ago‘In the name of “beautification” and “family planning”, during the Emergency Gandhi mère et fils bulldozed thousands of slums and sent eleven million Indians to sterilisation camps. That was one way of getting rid of 𝘨𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘣𝘪.’ @pratinavanil.bsky.social on Indira Gandhi. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
"The steelmaker, hotelier and airline mogul J.R.D. Tata praised Gandhi’s ‘refreshingly pragmatic’ approach: the trains ran on time, strikes ceased, markets rose. Two thousand union leaders were imprisoned and wages were frozen."
London Review of Books@lrb.co.uk · 4mo ago‘In the name of “beautification” and “family planning”, during the Emergency Gandhi mère et fils bulldozed thousands of slums and sent eleven million Indians to sterilisation camps. That was one way of getting rid of 𝘨𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘣𝘪.’ @pratinavanil.bsky.social on Indira Gandhi. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
‘In the name of “beautification” and “family planning”, during the Emergency Gandhi mère et fils bulldozed thousands of slums and sent eleven million Indians to sterilisation camps. That was one way of getting rid of 𝘨𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘣𝘪.’ @pratinavanil.bsky.social on Indira Gandhi. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Pratinav Anil · ‘Indira is India’
Being underestimated was Indira Gandhi’s chief political asset. The Congress elders who helped her become India’s...
lrb.co.uk
‘For all the admirers who queue at the Indira Gandhi Memorial museum to pay homage to the blood-stained sari she wore on the day of her assassination, the taint of corruption still clings.’ @pratinavanil.bsky.social on Gandhi and her legacy. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Pratinav Anil · ‘Indira is India’
Being underestimated was Indira Gandhi’s chief political asset. The Congress elders who helped her become India’s...
lrb.co.uk
‘Being underestimated was Indira Gandhi’s chief political asset. The Congress elders who helped her become India’s third prime minister imagined that they were installing a pliable cipher. Within a few years she had defenestrated the lot of them.’ Pratinav Anil: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Pratinav Anil · ‘Indira is India’
Being underestimated was Indira Gandhi’s chief political asset. The Congress elders who helped her become India’s...
lrb.co.uk
The Times on Saturday 31st July 1976, printed that year's Oxford Modern History class list on p. 14. Is it the man himself or someone else w. the same surname? Well, the other details--initials, school, college, & degree subject--match up with what's reported on his Wiki page, so I think it's him.
Read a free extract from ‘A Historian in Gaza’ ➡️ tinyurl.com/tm4vhnsj
French historian of Gaza, Jean-Pierre Filiu offers an ‘An unflinching eyewitness account of the destruction wreaked by Israel, with Anglo-American support. Look no further for an impartial account of the tragedy of the Palestinians.’ @pratinavanil.bsky.social @theguardian.com ‘Book of the Year’
Typically thoughtful review of some of this year’s history books by @pratinavanil.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/books/2025/d...
The best history and politics books of 2025
The revolutionary spirit in politics and architecture; histories of free speech and civil war; plus how the Tories fell apart and Starmer won
theguardian.com
Thrilled to see @pratinavanil has highlighted @pratinavanil.bsky.social 'A Historian in Gaza' in the Guardian round-up of 'Best History and Politics Books of 2025'. Get your copy at 50% off during our holiday sale, offer ends December 9th. 🇵🇸 ➡️ www.hurstpublishers.com/profile/jean...
“Formidable female novelists, ghastly literary men, a faith-shaken poet, eunuchs, pirates, horny wolves, international terrorists…" It's been great fun to judge this prize ... and here are the six finalists ... www.thebailliegiffordprize.co.uk/inside-the-c...
The Prize announces 2025 shortlist
The Baillie Gifford Prize rewards excellence in non-fiction writing, bringing the best in intelligent reflection on the world to new readers.
thebailliegiffordprize.co.uk
Forget Wilberforce — violent resistance killed off slavery I enjoyed Sudhir Hazareesingh’s account of how black resistance led to abolition. My latest for @thetimes.com: www.thetimes.com/culture/book...
Forget Wilberforce — violent resistance killed off slavery
In Daring to Be Free, the historian Sudhir Hazareesingh shows how strikes, sabotage and mutiny by slaves brought about abolition
thetimes.com
'Welcome to my last four years.' A search for accountability and a full, detailed explanation for Martha's death . . . www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Paul Laity · After Martha
For the hospital, and for the NHS, it was a closed case, another preventable death: medicine is imperfect, such things...
lrb.co.uk
'Sam Dalrymple’s Gandhi is no saint, but a character who became progressively unhinged.' Pratinav Anil on the reordering of India and its neighbours
Long divisions
the-tls.com
Review of The Story Of CO2 Is The Story Of Everything that is as pithily well written as the book itself : “Like life, death can be viewed unsentimentally as a slow unspooling into water and carbon dioxide” www.thetimes.com/culture/book...
A tale of fire and ice — how CO₂ shapes world history
In The Story of CO₂ Is the Story of Everything, Peter Brannen traces the importance of carbon dioxide from prehistoric swamps to the climate crisis
thetimes.com
On carbon dioxide, climate change, and capitalism. My latest for @thetimes.com: www.thetimes.com/culture/book...
A tale of fire and ice — how CO2 shapes world history
In The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything, Peter Brannen traces the importance of carbon dioxide from prehistoric swamps to the climate crisis
thetimes.com
Another pan of the book: TCW has "marooned himself on an island of vacuity." I know a little about publishing industry lag but a "summer of 2020 was CRAZY" book amid the summer of Alligator Alcatraz... yeah man maybe shoulda sent the draft in sooner. www.theguardian.com/books/2025/j...
Summer of Our Discontent by Thomas Chatterton Williams review – the liberal who hates leftists
In his caustic critique of identity politics, Williams ends up condemning every kind of collective action
theguardian.com
Dave Weigel@daveweigel.bsky.social · last yr.I'm a big Henry James head and this is even too digressive for me.
I read a superb new history of Carthage by Eve MacDonald - a finer cicerone than Flaubert - for @thetimes.com. My lead review today: www.thetimes.com/culture/book...
Don’t believe Roman lies — Carthage was civilised
In Roman propaganda it was a place of debauchery and child sacrifice, but in her new history Eve MacDonald shows that life in the ancient empire was surprisingly sophisticated
thetimes.com
I enjoyed this slogging more than — or perhaps exactly as much as — I should. “Williams’s grand subject being himself, now we have a third memoir. Summer of Our Discontent takes a caustic look at BLM from the lofty vantage point of his Parisian garret.” www.theguardian.com/books/2025/j...
Summer of Our Discontent by Thomas Chatterton Williams review – the liberal who hates leftists
In his caustic critique of identity politics, Williams ends up condemning every kind of collective action
theguardian.com
Spot the fuck on: “Fixated on slagging off the left, he has marooned himself on an island of vacuity.” www.theguardian.com/books/2025/j...
Summer of Our Discontent by Thomas Chatterton Williams review – the liberal who hates leftists
In his caustic critique of identity politics, Williams ends up condemning every kind of collective action
theguardian.com
what is great about this review is that the author is clearly sympathetic to the premise but can’t get past the basic fact that the author is a vacuous fool www.theguardian.com/books/2025/j...
Summer of Our Discontent by Thomas Chatterton Williams review – the liberal who hates leftists
In his caustic critique of identity politics, Williams ends up condemning every kind of collective action
theguardian.com
‘His homeland, he says, is a “society that is frankly more democratic, multi-ethnic, and egalitarian than any other in recorded history”. The Gini coefficient and Democracy Index beg to differ.’
"Fixated on slagging off the left, [Williams] has marooned himself on an island of vacuity." Ouch.
“Williams’s grand subject being himself, now we have a third memoir. Summer of Our Discontent takes a caustic look at Black Lives Matter from the lofty vantage point of his Parisian garret.” Damn
the other reason i like this review is it confirms that i’m not the only person who has read this dude’s work and thought, “him? really?”