Two new books about what’s wrong with the CIA get it (mostly) right.

Crusader for the poor, master golf course designer. Same person.

We’ve been what we’ve eaten, evidently, for some ten millennia.

Kwame Anthony Appiah wrestles with “cosmopolitanism”, but it escapes him.

Andrew Roberts has started a major bunfight with a book of history.

Von Donnersmarck’s The Lives of Others finally gets under the skin of Stasiland.

George Tenet is the low-pressure system in At the Center of the Storm.

Voltaire’s Lettres Philosophiques paved Tocqueville’s way to America.

Like any triple-play, Tom Stoppard’s The Coast of Utopia is rare entertainment.

The grand, strange and illuminating story of Washington, DC, and the eccentric genius of its designer. Also included, a photo tour of the city by the author.