How germs shape history
Jonathan Kennedy’s Pathogenesis reveals how diseases have built and broken empires and economies.
ByNon-fiction
Discover the latest non-fiction books and must-reads with the New Statesman’s expert reviews. Including biographies, music books, political writing and more.
From the war in Ukraine to the life of Roger Deakin: new books reviewed in short
Also featuring Anna Metcalfe’s Chrysalis and Octavia Bright’s This Ragged Grace.
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Be more tree
We admire trees for their solitary strength, but it is their remarkable facility for collaboration and sharing that provides lessons…
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Soldiers in love
Men at War, Luke Turner’s tender account of servicemen’s transgressive private lives, transforms our understanding of the Second World War.
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The brutality of ballet
Alice Robb’s Don’t Think Dear reveals how the elite world of dance exerts a terrible physical and mental toll.
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Is a feminist marriage possible?
A new history takes in everything from ancient Roman weddings to Don’t Tell the Bride to ask: can we redefine…
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From Amy Key to Tom Clark: new books reviewed in short
Also featuring Eve by Claire Horn and A Stranger in Your Own City by Ghaith Abdul-Ahad.
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George Eliot’s marriage plot
In her work, the novelist developed a radical philosophy of relationships. In her life, she put it into practice.
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Where are all the good books on sex?
Polly Barton’s “oral history” of porn shows the myopia of cultural criticism drawn from personal experience. We desperately need a…
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Now that I have cancer, how should I live?
Once a death sentence, my diagnosis has proved a weird limbo of scattered treatment and blurred identities.
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The new politics of time
How should we spend our hours in the age of burnout? Arguably not by reading Jenny Odell’s frustrating new book,…
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Adam Gopnik’s pursuit of the perfect sentence
The New Yorker journalist’s latest book, The Real Work, sheds light on a career spent obsessively attempting to master the…
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Nigel Biggar’s whitewashing of empire
The historian is right that Britain’s colonial legacy is morally complex. So why is his defence of it so simplistic?
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The best non-fiction books for 2023
From politics and Big Tech to history and identity, the essential books for the year ahead.
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Why we need the Women’s Prize for Non-fiction
We might be tempted to see prizes for women as less necessary with each passing year – but non-fiction is…
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The blurred ethics of memoir
Blake Morrison’s account of sibling tragedy passes its moral questions on to the reader.
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From Cariad Lloyd to Ayòbámi Adébáyò: new titles reviewed in short
Also featuring Tomorrow Perhaps the Future by Sarah Watling and Away From Beloved Lover by Dee Peyok.
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The myth of England’s “fair play” fetish
In sport and politics, the English boast that they always play by the rules – but history tells a different…
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Ghosts of the Cultural Revolution
Tania Branigan’s Red Memory shows how Xi Jinping’s China is erasing the violence and tyranny of Mao’s purges from history.
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What does Rick Rubin actually do?
The star producer’s supremely vague manual on creativity does nothing to explain his craft.
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