Reading Pictures: A History of Illustration

We live in an image-saturated culture, and Reading Pictures: A History of Illustration, by D.B. Dowd, shows how illustrations have been mass-produced and disseminated for more than 500 years. In his introduction, Dowd explains the book’s scope: “Reading Pictures is my attempt to tell a story of how printed images and texts developed, engaged, and sometimes manipulated audiences in North America, Europe, and East Asia from the early modern period to the present day, with greatest emphasis on the era of mass culture during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.”

The first half of the book covers the development of various printing techniques — woodblock printing in Asia, the invention of moveable type, and European etching and engraving — and the relationship between illustration and mass media: illustrated novels, satirical prints, lithographic advertising posters, newspapers, magazines, and comics. Later chapters are more thematic, focusing on the role of illustration in political propaganda, and the media’s formation of visual stereotypes about gender identities, childhood, and race.

The main emphasis is on Europe and America, though each chapter also includes coverage of illustration in China and Japan. Given the book’s stated focus on printed illustrations, there is no discussion of illuminated manuscripts. Illustration throughout the nineteenth century, and in the first half of the twentieth century, is covered in depth. (Fifty Years of Illustration, by Lawrence Zeegen and Caroline Roberts, is a more detailed guide to illustration since the 1960s.)

Reading Pictures is the third book to survey the history of illustration. Steven Heller and Seymour Chwast wrote a visual history of the subject in 2008, a concise introduction rather than an in-depth study. On the other hand, History of Illustration, published in 2018 and edited by Susan Doyle, remains the definitive work.

Doyle’s book is more global in its coverage than Dowd’s, with chapters on Indian, Latin American, African, and Islamic illustration. It also has more than twice as many images: 900, compared to Dowd’s still-impressive 400. Doyle’s more comprehensive book also finds space for histories of the major illustration genres — anatomy, natural history, and fashion — which are absent from Reading Pictures.

Orientalism:Between Fact and Fantasy

Orientalism: Between Fact and Fantasy opened at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York this month, and runs until next year. With almost 200 items on display, it’s probably the largest survey exhibition of Orientalist art. It’s also significant for its focus on Orientalist decorative arts and fashion in addition to the familiar paintings of Jean-Léon Gérôme and his contemporaries. The Met’s exhibition catalogue, written by Deniz Beyazit, Maryam Ekhtiar, and Asher Miller, features full-page images and an essay on Orientalist design.

Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump

During Donald Trump’s first term as US President, Maggie Haberman at The New York Times was the Trump reporter par excellence, breaking numerous exclusive stories based on unique access to senior White House sources. Since Trump’s return to the presidency last year, Haberman has been on book leave, working with fellow NYT reporter Jonathan Swan on a sequel to her earlier Trump biography Confidence Man. Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, Haberman and Swan’s definitive account of the first year of Trump’s second term, will be published on 23rd June.

Incredibly, the research for Regime Change included interviews with more than 1,000 sources. The authors also interviewed Trump for an hour in the Oval Office. Extracts from the book have already been published in The New York Times, including detailed accounts, with extensive quotes, of meetings in the Situation Room. According to a 14th June report on the Axios website, Trump administration officials believe — based on the veracity of the book extracts — that unauthorised recordings from inside the Situation Room were leaked to Haberman and Swan, in an unprecedented breach of White House security.

In an interview to promote the book, Haberman said that she was particularly proud of their reporting of meetings held at the Smithsonian, which, she emphasised, had not been recorded or transcribed. The book’s account of the Smithsonian meetings doesn’t include lengthy direct quotations, perhaps indicating that the Situation Room quotes are indeed sourced from audio recordings.

Regime Change is the twenty-third Trump tome on the Dateline Bangkok bookshelf. The others are: Confidence Man, Lucky Loser, TrumpNation, War, The Divider, Betrayal, Fire and Fury, Too Much and Never Enough, Fear, Rage, Peril, I Alone Can Fix It, A Very Stable Genius, Inside Trump’s White House, The United States of Trump, Trump’s Enemies, The Trump White House, The Room Where It Happened, Team of Five, American Carnage, The Cost, and the audiobook The Trump Tapes.

Mob Type:An Archive of the People’s Fight through Typography

The design studio PrachathipaType — a pun on prachathipatai, the Thai word for ‘democracy’ — specialises in pro-democracy typefaces. Working with some of the organisations leading the 2020–2021 anti-government protests, PrachathipaType effectively created the visual identity of the reform movement.

PrachathipaType’s type specimens and logos were published in 2022 as Mob Type. That Thai-language book was translated into Korean and English last year, in a dual-language edition titled Mob Type: An Archive of the People’s Fight through Typography (몹타입: 태국의 타이포그래피 민주화 투쟁 아카이브).

A detailed timeline of recent Thai politics — The Lost Decade — has been added to the new edition of Mob Type, to contextualise the protest movement for readers outside Thailand. PrachathipaType previously published a 2021 calendar in collaboration with Headache Stencil, and แบบเรียนพยัญชนะไทย (‘Thai consonant textbook’) in collaboration with Rap Against Dictatorship.

PrachathipaType and Rap Against Dictatorship have also collaborated on several other projects, including the music videos Homeland (บ้านเกิดเมืองนอน) and Budget (งบประมาณ). Most recently, PrachathipaType created an animated music video for the band’s single คุณหนูประเทศไท้ย กับกกต.ทั้งเจ็ด (‘little miss Thailand and the ECT members’), released after this year’s election.

Linocuts:A History

Last year, Thames and Hudson, in collaboration with the Victoria and Albert Museum, published Screenprints by Gill Saunders, the first in an annual series of books covering the histories of individual printmaking techniques. Saunders has also contributed to the second title in the series, Linocuts: A History, though its lead author is Ella Ravilious.

Both books are elegantly designed and typeset, and beautifully illustrated. (Most of their illustrations are from the V&A’s extensive prints collection, supplemented by works from private collections and other institutions.)

In her introduction, Ravilious explains that “although there are hundreds of ‘how-to’ books on making linocuts, little has been published on the history of this striking medium.” Linocuts is therefore the first comprehensive history of its subject, and similarly Screenprints is the only complete history of the screenprint.

On the other hand, the next two books in the series, on etchings, and woodcuts (forthcoming over the next two years), will not be the first histories of those printmaking techniques. There have already been several books on woodcuts — most recently, Anne Desmet’s Scene Through Wood — and Arthur M. Hind’s A History of Engraving and Etching is the standard history of etchings.

The Story of Printmaking:A Global History of Art

It has been thirty years since the last general history of artists’ prints — The Print in the Western World, by Linda C. Hults — was published. The Story of Printmaking, a new book on the subject by Holly E.J. Black, explains the major printmaking techniques and celebrates the artists who mastered them.

Black writes about the development of etching, mezzotint, aquatint, woodblock printing, lithography, and screenprints. She credits Jules Chéret as “the forefather of lithography,” Andy Warhol as the “one name that is truly synonymous with screenprinting”, and Francisco de Goya as the “artist who harnessed the possibilities of the [aquatint] medium like no other”. She argues that Sumida Hokusai’s The Great Wave (神奈川沖浪裏) is one of “a handful of artworks in existence that have become so utterly imprinted on the public consciousness that they deserved to be called ‘iconic’.”

The Story of Printmaking also highlights “the lesser-known players who have been deliberately or erroneously overlooked.” Many of these are female artists and printmakers, some of whom are relatives of more famous male figures. The book covers an extensive timeline and geographical range, though it’s quite episodic — with entire chapters on Mexico and South Africa, for example — rather than being a comprehensive history.

The Print in the Western World was almost 1,000 pages long, and an earlier history, The Art of the Print by Fritz Eichenberg, was similarly monumental at 600 pages. In contrast, at around 250 pages The Story of Printmaking feels less substantial than its subtitle (A Global History of Art) implies.

The first complete history of printmaking, Six Centuries of Fine Prints by Carl Zigrosser, was published in 1937. This was followed in the 1950s by Prints and Visual Communication (by William M. Ivens) and 500 Years of Printing (by S.H. Steinberg).

There are also authoritative books on specific printmaking techniques:

Woodcuts

• A History of Wood Engraving (Douglas Percy Bliss)
  
• A History of Wood Engraving (Albert Garrett)
• Scene Through Wood (Anne Desmet)

Screenprinting

• Screenprints (Gill Saunders)

Mezzotint

• The Mezzotint (Carol Wax)

Aquatint

• Aquatint (Rena M. Hoisington)

Engraving and etching

• A History of Engraving and Etching (Arthur M. Hind)

Linocut

• Linocuts (Ella Ravilious)

Lithography

• A History of Lithography (Wilhelm Weber)
• Lithography (Domenico Porzio)

Monotype

• The Painterly Print (Margaret Aspinwall)
• The Monotype (Carla Esposito Hayter)

Woodblock

• Images from the Floating World (Richard Lane)

Lady C: The Long, Sensational Life of Lady Chatterley’s Lover

When the obscenity trial of D.H. Lawrence’s novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover made headlines in the UK in 1960, the press dubbed it the ‘Lady C’ scandal. As Guy Cuthbertson says in his new book about the novel, also titled Lady C, the nickname “suggests the controversy regarding Lawrence’s use of ‘the c-word’”, and Cuthbertson’s first chapter is therefore titled The C-Word.

Cuthbertson’s book, subtitled The Long, Sensational Life of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, discusses the novel’s publication history, and gives an exhaustive account of its cultural impact. His source materials include newspaper coverage of the Lady C controversy from the 1950s onwards. He also describes the obscenity trial, or rather the trials, as Lady Chatterley was tried for obscenity in Japan and the US before the more famous Old Bailey trial.

On the fiftieth anniversary of Lady C’s acquittal, I wrote about the British court case, commenting that “the most notorious moment of the trial came at the beginning,” when prosecutor Mervyn Griffith-Jones asked the jury: “Is it a book that you would even wish your wife or your servants to read?” I also listed the “many outdated assumptions” inherent in that question, and pointed out the hypocrisy of Griffith-Jones telling the jury to avoid adopting a Victorian attitude when “his moral objections to the novel were themselves somewhat Victorian”.

Similarly, Cuthbertson writes: “The most remarkable and memorable moment of the trial came near the start,” and itemises the “various implied statements” in the Griffith-Jones question to the jury. He also highlights the prosecutor’s hypocrisy: “He had asked the jury that they should not act ‘in any priggish, high-minded, super-correct mid-Victorian manner’, but that was a manner that he himself seemed to have adopted.”

The Old Bailey trial was covered in more detail by C.H. Rolph in The Trial of Lady Chatterley, published only three months after the verdict was announced. Cuthbertson compares Rolph’s book to a “witty, well-crafted... courtroom crime novel.”

Abstract Art:A Global History

Pepe Karmel’s Abstract Art: A Global History was first published in 2020, followed by an expanded edition last year. Karmel begins with a close analysis of major paintings by “the three best-known creators of abstract art” — Vasily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrain, and Kazimir Malevich — and identifies apparent figurative origins within their abstract compositions. He then applies this revisionist methodology to later abstract artists: “If these key examples from the history of abstraction reveal concealed subject matter, perhaps the same is true of all abstract art.”

This informs his central thesis, that abstract art is the culmination of a creative process involving the transformation of figurative imagery: “The argument of this book, in brief, is that abstract artists always begin with a visual theme or archetype combining abstract forms with meanings generated by associations with the real world.” Note his use of words such as “all” and “always”: these are bold claims.

Karmel also rejects a chronological approach to art history, explaining that it’s not possible to cover each of the various movements and ‘isms’ that influenced the development of abstract art: “There is no narrative thread that could hold all of these together.” Nevertheless, previous histories of the subject, beginning with Michel Seuphor’s Dictionary of Abstract Painting and Abstract Painting, had a more traditional chronological structure.

Instead, Karmel’s book is organised thematically, into five broad categories: bodies, landscapes, cosmologies, architectures, and signs and patterns. Again, this imposes figurative origins onto abstract images, and despite the book’s subtitle, the result is a selective survey rather than a comprehensive history. (“I have chosen the artists who most clearly illustrate the arguments I want to make. Other, equally wonderful artists have been omitted.”) But it’s still the first major study of abstract art in more than thirty years, and it has an extensive bibliography.

When discussing the origins of abstract art, Karmel cites František Kupka’s 1912 painting Amorpha as a precursor to the Kandinsky/Mondrain/Malevich triumvirate. He is also among several writers in recent years who credit Hilma af Klint as a previously unsung pioneer of geometric abstraction. But there are two even earlier abstract artists who go unmentioned: Arnaldo Ginna and Victor Hugo.

Ginna’s 1908 painting Nevrastenia (‘neurasthenia’) has been described as “probably the first abstract painting in the history of Western art” (in Giannalberto Bendazzi’s Cartoons). Hugo’s fascinating stain-paintings were created from random splashes of ink, one of which was even titled Abstract Composition. (The work is undated, though it was produced in the 1860s.)

The Spiritual in Art, the 1986 exhibition that first rediscovered af Klint, was also arranged according to five themes, though only one of which (cosmic imagery, like the cosmologies chapter in Karmel’s book) was related to figurative images. Its extensive exhibition catalogue, edited by curator Maurice Tuchman, featured chapters covering artists and movements rather than visual classifications.

ฤดูกาลประชาชน(‘the season of the people’)

ฤดูกาลประชาชน (‘the season of the people’), published in 2022, features interviews with political campaigners including Arnon Nampa and Somyot Prueksakasemsuk, with portraits of each interviewee by Khai Maew. The interviews were conducted by Thiti Meetam.

Arnon, whose picture appears on the cover, is a lawyer and protest leader, and the author of books on poetry and politics. Somyot was editor of Voice of Taksin magazine. Both men were convicted of lèse-majesté, and the Somyot interview starts on p. 112. (Lèse-majesté is article 112 of the Thai criminal code.)

The Joyce of Everyday Life

At university, I wrote a dissertation on the cultural history of the c-word, which I later updated and published online. My work has been quoted by numerous other writers over the years, most recently by Vicki Mahaffey in The Joyce of Everyday Life, her prize-winning study of James Joyce.

In her book, Mahaffey cites me as a source: “Matthew Hunt argues that...” But, very strangely, she also writes: “Since Hunt’s death, the essay originally accessed has been taken down.”

This is really bizarre. Needless to say, I am still alive. I took my c-word research offline a few years ago, because it was being copied without authorisation, but I didn’t die. (I have now put my work on the c-word back online, and emailed Mahaffey to say that I’m not dead.)

Japan's Anime Revolution!Twenty Animated Films That Changed the World

Japan’s Anime Revolution! Twenty Animated Films That Changed the World, by Jonathan Clements, will be published in June. The book analyses twenty classic anime films “that help narrate and explain the history of Japanese animation”, including milestones such as Spirited Away (千と千尋の神隠し) and Akira (アキラ).

Clements is the leading anime authority outside Japan, and has worked on anime translation and distribution for many years, so he discusses each film from an industry insider’s perspective. He also surveys the latest Japanese-language anime scholarship.

Clements wrote the definitive history of anime in 2013. (A more concise book on the subject, 100 Years of Anime, was published last year.) He also co-wrote The Anime Encyclopedia, a uniquely comprehensive guide to thousands of anime titles. His co-author Helen McCarthy wrote Anime!, the first English-language book on the subject.

Harpy: A Manifesto for Childfree Women

In Harpy: A Manifesto for Childfree Women, Caroline Magennis argues that woman need not feel guilty for not having children. After searching for an appropriate description of herself as a woman without children, she settled on ‘harpy’: “I had tried on different words, and none of them stuck until Harpy.”

Although a harpy is generally depicted as a winged monster, Magennis embraces these physical characteristics as a metaphorical means of escape from criticism: “Through the harpy I want to find a way to turn both the passive-aggressive and direct stigma into something that felt like it had a terrifying power... The harpy came to mean, to me, all the ways in which we had been depicted but also a way out, even if we had to fly away and use our claws to get there.”

Magennis shows how childfree women are demonised by popular culture (specifically, tabloid newspapers and Hollywood films). She cites Lady Macbeth as “the epitome of the ruthless childless monster”, though she also highlights negative cultural archetypes such as wicked stepmothers.

Mary Daly, in Gyn/Ecology (1978), sought to reclaim ‘harpy’, along with similar terms such as ‘witch’, ‘hag’, ‘crone’, and ‘spinster’. Harpy is one of a handful of recent feminist books whose titles refer to misogynistic insults. Other examples include Hags by Victoria Smith, Bitch by Karen Stollznow, Slags on Stage by Katie Beswick, In Defence of Witches by Mona Chollet (which includes a chapter on The No-Child Option), Bimbo by Ashley James, and several books that tackle the word ‘slut’ (I Am Not a Slut, This Is What a Feminist Slut Looks Like, Wordslut, and Sluts).

Hags:The Demonisation of Middle-aged Women

Hags, as its subtitle makes clear, is a study of The Demonisation of Middle-aged Women. Author Victoria Smith explains that her purpose is not to reappropriate the word ‘hag’, nor to self-identify with the characteristics it evokes: “This book is not a celebration of our hag status.” (In contrast, Sharon Blackie — who trademarked the portmanteau word ‘hagitude’ — and fashion designer Batsheva Hay are self-proclaimed hags.)

Smith opposes the concept of linguistic reclamation, arguing that the process is impossible, as some men continue to use the contested terms as pejoratives: “call yourself what you like, but when others call you a witch or a slut, they mean it. We can act as though the words can be fully reclaimed, but they can’t. Those who dislike and fear us are using them too.” Karen Stollznow made a similar observation in her book about about another misogynistic term: “Unfortunately, the ways women try to reclaim bitch do not diminish its stigmatizing power in the hands of others, and especially men.”

Smith’s book shares its theme with The Crone, written by Barbara G. Walker in 1985, and the two books also have similar chapter headings. Mary Daly, in Gyn/Ecology (1978), sought to reclaim ‘hag’, along with related terms such as ‘witch’, ‘harpy’, ‘crone’, and ‘spinster’.

Hags is one of a handful of recent feminist books whose titles refer to misogynistic insults. Other examples include Harpy by Caroline Magennis, Slags on Stage by Katie Beswick, In Defence of Witches by Mona Chollet (which includes a chapter on Shattering the Image of the ‘Old Hag’), Bimbo by Ashley James, and several books that tackle the word ‘slut’ (I Am Not a Slut, This Is What a Feminist Slut Looks Like, Wordslut, and Sluts).

Slags on Stage: Class, Sex, Art and Desire in British Culture

Katie Beswick’s Slags on Stage: Class, Sex, Art and Desire in British Culture, published last year, “offers a personal and cultural history of the word ‘slag’,” a misogynistic slang term that implies both promiscuity and worthlessness. Beswick discusses the representation of female characters in popular culture (such as the self-defined “total slag” Kat Slater in EastEnders) and female artists (such as Tracey Emin, whose tent installation Everyone I Have Ever Slept With exposed her sexual history). The book’s cover illustration is from Kelly Green’s performance art production Slag.

Beswick briefly considers the reappropriation of ‘slag’, arguing that this is not yet possible: “We are not at the stage of reclaiming slag... or even being able to weaponise it effectively as resistance — and yet its complexities must be acknowledged in any reckoning with the term.” She conducted a survey of 169 people’s attitudes towards the word, and only two respondents “expressed a sense of reclamation”. A more common response was that “unlike other offensive sexist words, such as ‘slut’ and ‘cunt’, ‘slag’ was unable to be reclaimed, and therefore felt worse as an insult.”

Slags on Stage is one of a handful of recent feminist books whose titles refer to misogynistic insults. Other examples include Bitch by Karen Stollznow, Harpy by Caroline Magennis, Hags by Victoria Smith, In Defence of Witches by Mona Chollet, Bimbo by Ashley James, and several books that tackle the word ‘slut’ (I Am Not a Slut, This Is What a Feminist Slut Looks Like, Wordslut, and Sluts).

Cunt Is the Word

Anne Kernan’s Cunt Is the Word project began in 2021, when she designed a new image featuring the word ‘cunt’ every day, “using graphic design, photography, photo manipulation and craft.” In 2024, Kernan published 102 of those images as a photobook.

The book is beautifully packaged: wrapped in tissue paper and accompanied by five postcards. There are 100 copies, each of which is hand-numbered and signed by the artist.

In Defence of Witches: Why Women Are Still on Trial

In her introduction to In Defence of Witches: Why Women Are Still on Trial, Mona Chollet discusses historical and contemporary examples of women self-identifying as witches for feminist rather than occult reasons. These include second-wave feminist publications such as the WITCH Manifesto — which is quoted in the book’s epigraph — and Sorcières (‘witches’) magazine.

Surprisingly, she begins with a relatively unknown figure who has since become famous as a fictional archetype: “The first feminist to disinter the witches’ story and to claim this title for herself was the American Matilda Joslyn Gage, who... inspired the character of Glinda, the good witch in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which was written by her son-in-law, L. Frank Baum.” Given the success of the film adaptation of Baum’s book, The Wizard of Oz, Chollet argues that its director, Victor Fleming, “created the first ‘good witch’ in popular culture.”

Two other recent books have embraced the word ‘witch’ in both the feminist and occult senses: in Witch, Lisa Lister writes: “Witch... is now being reclaimed”, and in Witches, Sluts, Feminists, Kristen J. Sollée credits Gage as “the first known suffragist to reclaim the word ‘witch’.” Mary Daly, in Gyn/Ecology (1978), sought to reclaim ‘witch’, along with related terms such as ‘spinster’, ‘harpy’, ‘crone’, and ‘hag’, and Chollet devotes a chapter to Shattering the Image of the ‘Old Hag’.

In Defence of Witches was originally published in French as Sorcières: La puissance invaincue des femmes. Its American edition has a slightly longer subtitle (In Defense of Witches: The Legacy of the Witch Hunts and Why Women Are Still on Trial).

In Defence of Witches is one of a handful of recent feminist books whose titles refer to misogynistic insults. Other examples include Bitch by Karen Stollznow, Harpy by Caroline Magennis, Hags by Victoria Smith, Bimbo by Ashley James, and several books that tackle the word ‘slut’ (I Am Not a Slut, This Is What a Feminist Slut Looks Like, Wordslut, and Sluts).

Bimbo:Ditch the Labels. Find Your Voice. Reclaim Your Confidence.

Bimbo, by Ashley James, was published earlier this year. Like Jane Mills in Womanwords thirty years ago, James cites numerous pejorative terms for women (‘bimbo’ of course, but also ‘slut’, and many others), noting how the equivalent male terms are neutral or even positive.

James also discusses the issue of linguistic reclamation: “In recent years, some have begun to reclaim bimbo as a symbol of empowerment — celebrating femininity, self-expresion, and subverting the idea that being hot and clever are mutually exclusive.” But the book — subtitled Ditch the Labels. Find Your Voice. Reclaim Your Confidence. — ultimately argues against reappropriating misogynistic terminology.

James writes that reclaiming pejoratives would be a never-ending battle: “We cannot ever beat these words because if we’re not one, we’re another.” Instead, she advocates autonomy rather than conformity: “I believe in something bigger: the right to live without definition... I want us to break free of the gendered social constraints that aim to keep us compliant.”

Bimbo is one of a handful of recent feminist books whose titles refer to misogynistic insults. Other examples include Harpy by Caroline Magennis, Hags by Victoria Smith, In Defence of Witches by Mona Chollet, Bitch by Karen Stollznow, and several books that tackle the word ‘slut’ (I Am Not a Slut, This Is What a Feminist Slut Looks Like, Wordslut, and Sluts).

Get In

Gabriel Pogrund and Patrick Maguire’s Get In, published in hardback last year, told the inside story of how Keir Starmer and Morgan McSweeney (not necessarily in that order) reformed the Labour Party and won the 2024 UK general election. The paperback edition, released last month, includes a new postscript, The Passive Premiership, covering Starmer’s first year in office. (The postscript’s title is taken from a description of Starmer by an unnamed senior government official: “It’s a very oddly passive premiership.”)

Pogrund and Maguire’s post-election verdict is damning: “After fourteen years of estrangement, the Labour Party had reintroduced itself to the people in the worst possible terms. Starmer had promised a politics of service. His first act had been to stamp recklessly over their fragile trust in the state.” They argue that Starmer is disinterested in policy and disengaged from decision making, and they also criticise the presentational errors his government has made.

Starmer’s unwillingness to engage in policy decisions was most damaging when, shortly after the election, Labour announced a plan to means-test the winter fuel allowance for pensioners: “Starmer did not notice the stench of political death.” The plan was eventually reversed, as was a proposal to break a manifesto commitment not to raise income tax. These U-turns created a double whammy: public anger over the initial proposals, followed by press criticism over the policy reversals.

The book highlights the mixed messaging and negativity of Starmer’s speeches, such as when he replaced New Labour’s optimistic Things Can Only Get Better anthem with a downbeat message: “‘Things will get worse,’ he said, ‘before they get better.’” Then there was the misjudged “island of strangers” speech which, in an Observer interview with Tom Baldwin, Starmer later distanced himself from. And in the absence of a Starmer ideology, there were a series of confusing targets: “five missions that became ‘six measurable milestones,’ then ‘three foundations,’ before being abandoned entirely”.

Pogrund and Maguire cite Starmer’s relationship with Donald Trump as one of his few personal achievements: “Trump, despite himself, grew fond of the prime minister.” This had tangible benefits when the US President reduced tariffs on the UK: “no other world leader had been given the preferential treatment Trump extended to Starmer.” (The relationship is now in doubt, after Trump mocked Starmer as “no Winston Churchill” earlier this month.)

The postscript was written before the latest scandal surrounding Peter Mandelson, whom Starmer appointed as his US ambassador and who is now under police investigation. But Get In does include some fascinating background on the subject: “Not a single strategic decision was taken without the Irishman canvassing Mandelson’s view.” The authors make clear that McSweeney (the Irishman) was Mandelson’s protégée, and that Starmer made the ambassadorial appointment on McSweeney’s say so, without even speaking to Mandelson himself, “either before or after his appointment.”

Their conclusion refers back to a key quote from the book’s hardback edition, a metaphor for Starmer’s apparent position as McSweeney’s unwitting puppet: “back on the Docklands Light Railway — the passive prime minister, content to be driven to his destination by strangers who held him in contempt.” That could also be a description of Boris Johnson’s working relationship with Dominic Cummings, and in both cases the relationships ultimately imploded.

Britain’s Best Political Cartoons 2025

Tim Benson, Britain’s leading authority on political cartoons, compiled an anthology of Britain’s Best Ever Political Cartoons in 2021. He also edits an annual cartoon compilation, and the most recent edition, Britain’s Best Political Cartoons 2025, was published in October last year. (It features cartoons from September 2024 to August 2025.)

The best cartoon in the collection is the one on the cover: a Morten Morland cartoon inspired by James Gillray’s famous satirical print The Plumb-pudding in Danger, which depicted Napoleon and William Pitt literally carving up the globe. In Morland’s version, the two statesmen are replaced by the world’s most powerful man and the world’s richest man: Donald Trump and Elon Musk. (Morland’s cartoon was first published in The Times on 9th January 2025.)

In his introduction, Benson discusses the Benjamin Netanyahu cartoon that resulted in Steve Bell being fired by The Guardian in 2023, comparing it to the similar circumstances of Gerald Scafe’s dismissal from The Sunday Times a decade earlier. (The two veteran cartoonists, both among the best in the business, each faced accusations of antisemitism following their caricatures of Netanyahu.)

The Manga Bible

Helen McCarthy, alongside Frederik L. Schodt and Jonathan Clements, is responsible for some of the very first English-language writing on Japanese manga (comics) and anime (animation). She wrote The Art of Osamu Tezuka, the first book in English on the most acclaimed mangaka (comic illustrator), and with Clements she co-wrote The Anime Encyclopedia, the definitive anime film and TV guide.

McCarthy’s latest book, The Manga Bible, is a comprehensive introduction to manga, not only profiling key mangaka but also examining the manga industry, scholarship, fandom, and various cultural contexts. The book is broadly chronological, and there are also sections on the most popular manga genres. Each chapter is fairly concise, though The Manga Bible lives up to its title and covers manga from every conceivable angle.

Schodt’s book Manga! Manga! first introduced Japanese comics to Western readers, and he translated Toshio Ban’s The Osamu Tezuka Story. Manga Design (revised as 100 Manga Artists), by Amano Masanao and Julius Wiedemann, reprints extracts from significant manga. Recently, manga scholar Eike Exner has written two revisionist histories of the subject, Manga and Comics and the Origins of Manga.