The breaking of nation-states
Utopian visions of an internationalist future ring hollow in dystopian times
ByBook reviews
Read all the latest book reviews from the New Statesman and discover the best novels, non-fiction, essays and biographies. If you’re looking for something more specific, explore our sections dedicated to politics books and history books.
Gisèle Pelicot is not your hero
In her new memoir, Pelicot rejects the pedestal she has been put on
By
Gavin Newsom knows he’s shallow
The California governor is honest about his own ambitions
By
Nintendo: the company that consoled the world
The gaming corporation succeeded by shunning the slaughter and darkness that drives so many franchises
By
How to turn breast milk into a cash cow
The market for erotic lactation, IVF and surrogacy is a morally complex world of desperation and exploitation
By
James Meek’s broken Britain
The LRB essayist’s new novel draws from his reporting on a dysfunctional nation
By
The violence at the heart of the CCP
Frank Dikötter charts the rise of Chinese communism through its brutality. But does he undervalue the role of ideas?
By
The life and afterlife of Gordon Brown
Has the former prime minister finally stepped out of Tony Blair’s shadow?
By
Uncovering Russia’s dark soul
The country’s vast woods have been overlooked in our understanding of its violent history
By
Dirty realism goes supernatural
The writer’s new novel Vigil suffers from its ambition
By
Love in the time of AI
Young people are turning to AI chatbots for relationships they can’t find in the real world
By
The dark side of the Enlightenment
Capitalism is far from the only extractive force in human history
By
Syria, from the Ottomans to al-Qaeda
The country is still haunted by a long and fractured past
By
Chomsky against Foucault against Dworkin – who cares?
Ideas overpower meaning in Sophie Ward’s packed novel
By
A farewell to autofiction
Rob Doyle uses a proliferation of alter egos to lampoon the autofiction genre
By
The moral grammar of Daniyal Mueenuddin’s Pakistan
This Is Where the Serpent Lives depicts a world shaped by non-Western values
By
Julian Barnes departs on his own terms
Departure(s) is the novelist’s moving and inventive final book
By
The Ten Year Affair made me hate myself
Erin Somers’ adultery novel is targeted at downwardly mobile, media-adjacent millennials
By
Why are we so obsessed with Japan?
A national culture built upon civility and respect offers an alternative to the self-absorption of the West
By
Islam is the engine of world history
The religion may have transformed every corner of the globe, but it was also radically changed in the process
By