In Age of Anger: The History of the Present, Pankaj Mishra uses a vast historical perspective to explain “why the modern world, from London to Mumbai and Mosul, is like it is”, according to Helen Lewis in the New Statesman.

textured, readable and often compelling.” Her subject, nevertheless, is irresistibly rich. “Where Hughes, her enthusiasm radiates, but elsewhere her language can veer into slapstick jauntiness, presumably to make the dense history more readable. And for Louise Callaghan, the Turkey correspondent of the Sunday Times, “the women in this story become the most memorable characters”. Several reviewers were keen on the tales of Empress Theodora, with the Sunday Telegraph’s Sameer Rahim applauding that “Hughes isn’t averse to heating up her own narrative with the salacious stories that dot the city’s past”.

Hughes is strong at “celebrating citizenry of the world at a time when that idea is in retreat, damning the ‘otherness’ that west has bestowed upon east … She is a wistful and impassioned cosmopolitan who has produced a challenging story for 2017.” Caroline Sanderson in the Sunday Express found “this sumptuously produced history book” to be “as timely as it is enthralling”. Bettany Hughes’s Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities, is “built deliberately on what is passing as well as past”, according to Peter Stothard in the Financial Times. R arely can two books about ancient history with such contemporary relevance have appeared in the same week.

Paul auster 4321 reviews