1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF Telephone: 020 7782 5000 Fax: 020 7782 4966 letters@the-tls.co.uk U nderestimating the complexities of Islam has a long history. British policy-makers used to think of themselves as more expert than their foreign counterparts, but the unfortunate oversimplifications in the mind of Tony Blair seem likely to loom larger in the twenty-first century record than any Whitehall sagacity. A much-admired new book by the Cambridge historian David Motadel examines the Germans’ difficulty in fitting Islam into an alien framework during the Second World War. Hitler needed mass Muslim support in North Africa in 1941, and hoped that murdering Jews and translating “Stuka dive bomber” as “eagle of the prophet” might outweigh his view of Arab racial inferiority in Mein Kampf. Gerald Butt praises Motadel’s account of the reasons for Nazi failure in the region, noting some of the unchanged mistakes made by Western powers six decades on. During the battles for North Africa the British had frequent cause to be grateful that General Franco’s Spain, with its land access to the Straits of Gibraltar, was not allied to the Axis cause. Why precisely this was the case and who deserved our thanks are still subjects of debate, although, as Felipe Fernández-Armesto notes this week, “Paul Preston demonstrated long ago that the decision was Hitler’s, who refused to pay the price Franco sought”. FernándezArmesto is reviewing an attempt at “a new vindication” of Franco, judging him beside rivals of the time who might have been “no better” or “probably just as bad”. Stanley Payne and Jesús Palacios have written “a fearless book” that our critic hopes “may not be friendless”. BIOGRAPHY 3 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 6 HISTORY 8 Lauro Martines Ian Mortimer Centuries of Change – Which century saw the most change and why it matters to us CLASSICS 9 James Romm Christopher Pelling and Maria Wyke Twelve Voices from Greece and Rome – Ancient ideas for modern times Adrienne Mayor The Amazons – Lives and legends of warrior women across the ancient world Felipe Fernández-Armesto Stanley Payne and Jesús Palacios Franco – A personal and political biography Bats and Texans, ‘Little Women’, Berryman’s ‘Sonnets’, etc Simon Goldhill LITERARY CRITICISM 11 Kasia Boddy Roberta Rubenstein Literary Half-Lives – Doris Lessing, Clancy Sigal, and roman à clef HISTORY 12 Gerald Butt Sumita Mukherjee Stefan Ihrig Atatürk in the Nazi Imagination. David Motadel Islam and Nazi Germany’s War Anita Anand Sophia – Princess, suffragette, revolutionary COMMENTARY 14 Robert DeMaria, Jr David Arscott Then & Now Careful and careless – Epic tales in the editing of Dr Johnson Freelance TLS December 27, 1974 – Life vandalism ARTS 17 Matthew Bown Anna Picard Rubens and His Legacy – Van Dyck to Cézanne (Royal Academy of Arts) Henry Purcell The Indian Queen (English National Opera, Coliseum) FICTION 19 Russell Williams John Taylor Sam Byers Michel Houellebecq Soumission Éric Reinhardt L’Amour et les forêts Miranda July The First Bad Man FICTION IN BRIEF 21 Andrew Irwin Catherine Scott David Collard Conor Farrington Michael Nath British Story – A romance James MacManus Sleep in Peace Tonight Sara Baume spill simmer falter wither John Boyne A History of Loneliness LITERARY CRITICISM 22 Iain Bamforth Alicia Rix Lois Potter Adam Kirsch Rocket and Lightship – Essays on literature and ideas Jean Perrot Henry James’s Enigmas – Turning the screw of eternity? Thomas L. Berger and Sonia Massai, editors Paratexts in English Printed Drama to 1642 BIOGRAPHY 24 Jules Smith Ian S. MacNiven “Literchoor is My Beat” – A Life of James Laughlin, publisher of New Directions. Peter Glassgold, editor The Collected Poems of James Laughlin POEMS 24 A. E. Stallings 27 C. J. Driver Half of an Epic Simile not found in Hesiod Fragment POLITICS 25 Martin Meredith Andrew Sardanis Zambia – The first 50 years: Reflections of an eyewitness. Christopher S. Adam, Paul Collier and Michael Gondwe, editors Zambia – Building prosperity from resource wealth RELIGION 26 Tina Beattie Geoffrey Rowell Lissa McCullough The Religious Philosophy of Simone Weil Ian Ker Newman on Vatican II NATURAL SCIENCE 27 Gabriel Hemery Oliver Rackham The Ash Tree TRAVEL 28 Jonathan Dore Hampton Sides In the Kingdom of Ice – The grand and terrible polar voyage of the USS Jeannette. Bea Uusma The Expedition – A love story – Solving the mystery of a polar tragedy. Michael Smith Shackleton – By endurance we conquer. George Lowe and Huw Lewis-Jones The Crossing of Antarctica – Original photographs from the epic journey that fulfilled Shackleton’s dream Márton Szepsi Csombor Europica Varietas; Translated by Bernard Adams George Gömöri “Time and time again”, writes Lauro Martines, “famine propelled soldiers and civilians into acts of unspeakable cruelty.” He is describing conditions in the fourteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth and twentieth centuries in a review of Ian Mortimer’s Centuries of Change. The striking illustration on the same page is of the peculiarly timeless character of London’s Liverpool Street station (detail above), captured in a rediscovered wood engraving by the little-known artist Norman Janes, recently published in a handsome account of his life and work by Elizabeth Grice. PS IN BRIEF 30 PHILOSOPHY 32 Maria Rosa Antognazza Richard T. W. Arthur Leibniz. Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra Leibniz’s Principle of Identity of Indiscernibles SPORT 34 Michael Beloff John Carlin Chase Your Shadow – The trials of Oscar Pistorius Josh Cohen The Private Life – Why we remain in the dark, etc This week’s contributors, Crossword 35 NB 36 J. C. How to use the comma, Modiano’s maman, Scots de la Mare Cover image: Detail from an allegorical painting of General Franco as Chief of the armed forces of land, sea and air. Artist unknown © Album/Oronoz/akg-images; p3 © Mario Tama/Getty Images; p4 © Paul Popper/Popperfoto/Getty Images; p8 Courtesy Evergreen Press; p10 © DeAgostini/SuperStock; p12 © Corbis; p14 Courtesy of the Donald and Mary Hyde Collection at the Houghton Library, Harvard University; p17 © Museo Nacional Del Prado; p18 © Alastair Muir; p19 © Xavier Francolon/SIPA/Rex Features; p25 © Carol Lee/Alamy; p27 © FLO/Science and Society/SuperStock; p28 © The George Lowe Collection; p34 © Stephane de Sakutin/AFP/Getty Images The Times Literary Supplement (ISSN 0307661, USPS 021-626) is published weekly except a double issue in August and December by The Times Literary Supplement Limited, London UK, and distributed in the USA by OCS America Inc., 195 Anderson Avenue, Moonachie, NJ 07074-1621. Periodical postage paid at Moonachie NJ and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: please send address corrections to TLS, P0 Box 3000, Denville, NJ 07834, USA. USA and Canadian retail newsstand copies distributed by Kable Distribution Services, 14 Wall Street, Suite 4C New York, New York 10005 TLS MARCH 6 2015