I am delighted to announce that I have just been awarded the right to drive my sheep across London Bridge, toll-free. Roughly translated, that means I have been awarded the Freedom of the City of...

An essay by Judith Kerr, who died recently, explaining the lasting impact of her multi-lingual childhood on her relationship with language. First published in the TLS in 1975

The German philosopher Ferdinand Tönnies characterized heimat (which loosely means “homeland”), as “a living substance that … persists in the never-ending

In her important new book, Held in Contempt, Hannah White details the parlous state of the UK parliament. She does so with the even temper and forensic

Norma Clarke considers the ‘furious absurdism’ of Cold War Steve

Bernardine Evaristo on why race still matters

I have been thinking harder recently about why we need the humanities (and Classics in particular), trying out different ideas in lectures and seminars

A ‘stunning’ companion to a great literary edifice

David Baddiel on the internet video that raises issues around the right of comedians to offend

Ukrainian history has become as bitterly contested a battlefield as that scarred country’s plains and cities. There may be only two armies on the field,

Book review - British Politics - The TLS | Boris Johnson: The gambler by Tom Bower, reviewed by Rory Stewart

Most of us originate in a sex act between our parents; few of us care to dwell too closely on the details. As the former BBC journalist Rory Cellan-Jones

There may not be a wrong way to read a book, but if you will indulge me, I will offer advice on how to read the books of Gene Wolfe.

There may not be a wrong way to read a book, but if you will indulge me, I will offer advice on how to read the books of Gene Wolfe.

I was working in New York over the Queen’s funeral and the days leading up to it. I was able to watch the BBC broadcast of the ceremony itself on the

As Boris Johnson’s premiership recedes into the past, what are we to make of the former prime minister? Is he Pericles or Alcibiades? Given more time in

When it comes to probing the politics of Jane Austen’s family, we may need to put reproach and recuperation alongside pride and prejudice. The question of how culpable the Austens were in the support...

This essay was first published in the TLS of June 1, 1990. We are republishing it here following the death of Hilary Mantel on September 22, 2022. Writers

One of the side "benefits" of building and road development is always archaeology. I put "benefits" in inverted commas because, in many cases, what is

All the talk about the contenders "vying" to be prime minister should bring back into the spotlight Rome in 193 CE. Most of our go-to parallels with the

None of us yet knows what really lies behind the Nadhim Zahawi affair, and when we eventually do know such "facts" as we will be told (and some will

We know that the former prime minister has a soft spot for Pericles, the hero of the Athenian democracy in the fifth century BCE and the builder of the

The Romans had many ways of dealing with the statues of those they no longer wanted to honour. Some they (or their enemies) destroyed: the head of the emperor Claudius found in the river near...

Microaggressions are obviously part of the repertoire of power, though they are often hard to pin down. The University of Cambridge (deservedly) got into

I’m really pleased that our "Being Roman" series (still available on BBC Sounds) did well enough last year to be granted a second run (in May, if all goes

What the ‘most mysterious manuscript in the world’ means

I first met Roger Scruton in the early 1990s. I had started lecturing at UCL and he was a professor down the road at Birkbeck College. I had been invited as a guest speaker at a weekend conference...

It is often when you are told not to do something, that you start to wonder why you do it anyway. And – as we move to elbow nudges – so it is with the handshake. Where did the custom begin? The...

Another new Roman discovery this week, and some more questions with it. There have been plenty of reports of how a farming family found traces of a large

Few philosophers have followed Karl Marx’s exhortation to change the world more directly than J. L. Austin did. A third of M. W. Rowe’s new book on the

There are many unsung heroes involved in the production of a book. Copy editors are among the most unsung. What these hardworking women and men do (more

Wilfred Owen, a twenty-four-year-old burgeoning poet, was leaving Craiglockhart War Hospital in November 1917, bound for London, when he wrote the above ...

Over the last nine months or so, I have been participating in a new media project that has just been officially launched. It’s not for television in the

This weekend our trio of Latinists – me, Llewelyn Morgan and Peter Stothard – were doing our traditional gig at the Cheltenham Literature Festival, on

Brexit | Political round-up: Three and a half years of political commentary and analysis

Don’t worry, I am not going to spend much time investigating the painting which may or may not show an "ancestor of the pizza" recently discovered in

Did the Byzantines consider themselves Roman?

I well remember, back in the 1960s, that my mum was rather competitive about Christmas cards. She didn’t exactly say this, but I got the impression that

Comparisons between ancient and modern politics are always dangerous, though often seductive. And like many classicists, I have been seduced over the past

Quintus Lollius Urbicus, one time Roman governor of Britain, whose home was in what we now call Algeria (his tomb above), would I suspect be amazed at the intense disputes...

Diane Purkiss on the history of ignoring early women writers

Those who are “within” the subject will know that there has been a lot of sometimes acrimonious discussion over the past few years about what “Classics” actually comprises. What is the boundary of...

If you were to look carefully at my CV, you would (rightly, in a way) conclude that I was an extreme case of "the two cultures". I have hardly studied any

Hay Festival 2023 is taking place in the book town of Hay-on-Wye, Powys, until June 4. Tickets for many events are still available and can be booked here

I am hugely relieved that the ancient Romans did not have coronations. Otherwise, I think I would be spending a week, like many historians of later

The TLS Editor, Stig Abell, finds Claudio Gatti's article unimportant and unnecessary

May 10, 2024 | TLS

I am glad that writers have been pushing back against children’s books written by celebrities. I have often been asked to write a book on the Romans for

Bernard Williams | Footnotes to Plato | Paul Russell examines Bernard Williams’s attempt to make sense of ethics, without a moral system

For months, I have been sounding off about the government’s approach to “THE science” of Covid-19. Like many others, I said: “hey, we can’t just follow ‘THE’ science, as ‘THE’ science is debated”. I...

Physics essay | Richard Feynman: profound scientific insights, gift for public education, and sometimes sexist attitudes, by Paul Halpern

My mum had a fickle relationship with her daily newspaper. She would take the Guardian for a bit, then get fed up with agreeing with it and change to The Times – then get too cross with it and change...

I have never felt a compulsion to judge works of art or literature on the basis of their artist’s behaviour or moral compass. I do want to face up to

I was immediately going to follow up the blog on books in Albania with more of that country’s delights, but events took over. I know that we are still

The first shot of Umberto Eco: A library of the world, in black-and-white, is familiar. The camera follows Eco as he walks down a hallway lined with

I have been spending quite a chunk of the summer making five short films (with my faculty in Cambridge and Lion TV). They have classical themes, and they

Philosophy essay - The TLS | On Spinoza: the philosopher who questioned the existence of the world, by Clare Carlisle AND Yitzhak Y. Melamed

I have been keeping out of the "is it a dildo?" debate. For those of you who have not kept up with this, there was a predictable flurry of interest last

Simon de Beauvoir | Philosophy Essay | Skye C. Cleary discusses how Simone de Beauvoir's existentialism informed her views on gender and justice

The Public Domain Review, founded ten years ago by Adam Green and Jonathan Gray, is a not-for-profit online journal dedicated to “the exploration of

Very quickly Poetry Birmingham has become a magazine in which a promising variety of poets evidently want to be seen. And no wonder, for Afshan and Sabah ...

Alexander van Tulleken on scientific bestsellers, ‘at once terrifying and reassuring’

Brian Dillon considers the role, shape and purpose of the essay today

I have just returned to Pompeii for the first time since Covid. So, what’s new? I was lucky enough to get a sneak peek at some of the restoration work

“Towards the end he sailed into an extraordinary mildness”, wrote W. H. Auden of Herman Melville, “And anchored in his home and reached his wife / And

A couple of weeks ago, my Faculty in Cambridge launched one of its youngest offspring – in the shape of a new dictionary of ancient Greek, which has been about twenty-five years in the making. It was...

There has been a huge amount of press excitement over the last week or so surrounding the high-tech decipherment of a single word ("purple") from one of