MATTHEW HAWKINS applauds a psychotherapist’s disection of William Blake
The long reach of the medieval Islamic workforce
WILL PODMORE is enthralled by the convincing case that guilds of Islamic craftsmen were responsible for the European gothic style
EVOLUTION OF GOTHIC FROM ISLAMIC: Arches of the former mosque, the Cordoba Mezquita, in traditional Islamic style and completed in 971, are incorporated into the Gothic style of the transept of the Main Chapel (1523)
[Daderot/CC] 
New releases from Christina Alden and Alex Patterson, Odette Michell, Clementine Lovell
JOHN GREEN is fascinated by a very readable account of Britain’s involvement in South America
Strip cartoons used to be the bread and butter of newspapers and they have been around for centuries. MICHAL BONCZA asks our own Paul Tanner about which bees are in his bonnet
GORDON PARSONS acknowledges the authority with which Sarah Kane’s theatrical justification for suicide has resonance today
RON JACOBS welcomes a timely homage to one of the IWW and CPUSA’s most effective orators
Islamesque: the forgotten craftsmen who built Europe’s medieval monuments
Diana Darke, Hurst, £25
THIS is a wonderful book, fully and colourfully illustrated. Diana Darke is an Arabist and cultural expert who has lived and worked in the Middle East for over 30 years. She describes beautifully hundreds of cathedrals, churches, monasteries, palaces and castles.
She challenges the conventional wisdom that only Rome could be the source of Christian architecture. The accepted idea is that the “Romanesque” style simply emerged between 1000 and 1250 across the whole of Europe, making it the first pan-European architectural style since Imperial Roman.
More from this author
WILL PODMORE peruses a new history of the opening weeks of conflict between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia
WILL PODMORE recommends an excellent and useful introduction to a lesser-known giant of the scientific revolution in Britain
WILL PODMORE is intrigued by a study the British ruling class that follows statistical analysis with totally inadequate proposals for change
WILL PODMORE welcomes a demonstration of the incomparable virtues of rail travel, and the political obstacles to realising its potential
