Typically thoughtful review of some of this year’s history books by @pratinavanil.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/books/2025/d...

Thrilled to see @pratinavanil has highlighted @pratinavanil.bsky.social 'A Historian in Gaza' in the Guardian round-up of 'Best History and Politics Books of 2025'. Get your copy at 50% off during our holiday sale, offer ends December 9th. 🇵🇸 ➡️ www.hurstpublishers.com/profile/jean...

“Formidable female novelists, ghastly literary men, a faith-shaken poet, eunuchs, pirates, horny wolves, international terrorists…" It's been great fun to judge this prize ... and here are the six finalists ... www.thebailliegiffordprize.co.uk/inside-the-c...

Forget Wilberforce — violent resistance killed off slavery I enjoyed Sudhir Hazareesingh’s account of how black resistance led to abolition. My latest for @thetimes.com: www.thetimes.com/culture/book...

'Welcome to my last four years.' A search for accountability and a full, detailed explanation for Martha's death . . . www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

'Sam Dalrymple’s Gandhi is no saint, but a character who became progressively unhinged.' Pratinav Anil on the reordering of India and its neighbours

Review of The Story Of CO2 Is The Story Of Everything that is as pithily well written as the book itself : “Like life, death can be viewed unsentimentally as a slow unspooling into water and carbon dioxide” www.thetimes.com/culture/book...

On carbon dioxide, climate change, and capitalism. My latest for @thetimes.com: www.thetimes.com/culture/book...

Another pan of the book: TCW has "marooned himself on an island of vacuity." I know a little about publishing industry lag but a "summer of 2020 was CRAZY" book amid the summer of Alligator Alcatraz... yeah man maybe shoulda sent the draft in sooner. www.theguardian.com/books/2025/j...

I read a superb new history of Carthage by Eve MacDonald - a finer cicerone than Flaubert - for @thetimes.com. My lead review today: www.thetimes.com/culture/book...

OMG this review. Read it to the kicker. www.theguardian.com/books/2025/j...

I enjoyed this slogging more than — or perhaps exactly as much as — I should. “Williams’s grand subject being himself, now we have a third memoir. Summer of Our Discontent takes a caustic look at BLM from the lofty vantage point of his Parisian garret.” www.theguardian.com/books/2025/j...

Spot the fuck on: “Fixated on slagging off the left, he has marooned himself on an island of vacuity.” www.theguardian.com/books/2025/j...

what is great about this review is that the author is clearly sympathetic to the premise but can’t get past the basic fact that the author is a vacuous fool www.theguardian.com/books/2025/j...

‘His homeland, he says, is a “society that is frankly more democratic, multi-ethnic, and egalitarian than any other in recorded history”. The Gini coefficient and Democracy Index beg to differ.’

"Fixated on slagging off the left, [Williams] has marooned himself on an island of vacuity." Ouch.

“Williams’s grand subject being himself, now we have a third memoir. Summer of Our Discontent takes a caustic look at Black Lives Matter from the lofty vantage point of his Parisian garret.” Damn

the other reason i like this review is it confirms that i’m not the only person who has read this dude’s work and thought, “him? really?”

this made me cackle

This is Kendrick Lamar level takedown, good lord.

"Excelling in sending up bien-pensant opinion, he has no answers. Fixated on slagging off the left, he has marooned himself on an island of vacuity." Summer of Our Discontent by Thomas Chatterton Williams review – the liberal who hates leftists www.theguardian.com/books/2025/j...

I enjoyed reading this acute review because, honestly, you could not pay me enough to make me read the actual book.

A richly deserved, & precisely executed, pan.

“Williams’s other objections appear to be mostly aesthetic. Visiting BLM-ravaged Portland, he mourns that “a beloved statue of an elk has been toppled”. This in a town with a “well-deserved reputation” for “exquisite gastronomy”. Quelle horreur.”

I read Thomas Chatterton Williams' new BLM memoir for @guardianbooks.bsky.social and wasn't particularly impressed: www.theguardian.com/books/2025/j...

🇮🇳 📚This month marks the 50th anniversary of Indira Gandhi’s declaration of the ‘Emergency.' Now in pb, read ‘The best & most comprehensive book on the Emergency.’ @bsindia.bsky.social by‪ @jaffrelot.bsky.social‬ & @pratinavanil.bsky.social 25% off w/code DICTATORSHIP25 ➡️: tinyurl.com/38ff6dh6

Glorious Failure reviewed by @pratinavanil.bsky.social for the Literary Review. Publication date is June 26th :) @hurstpublishers.bsky.social literaryreview.co.uk/from-paris-t...

Full-page review in the Sunday Times culture supplement today. “a cheerfully eccentric introduction to London clubland...enormously entertaining...There’s a great deal of practical information here as well...Thévoz makes a persuasive case as to why you should join one.”

India’s new iconoclasts | @pratinavanil.bsky.social engelsbergideas.com/essays/india...

Severed heads, petrified penises, revolting peasants ... a very entertaining review by @pratinavanil.bsky.social in today's @thetimes.com #History thetimes.com/culture/book...

This septic isle My latest, on pox and proles in 14th-century England, for @thetimes.com: This septic isle — England in the calamitous 14th century www.thetimes.com/article/0ca8...

Religious tensions have often underpinned the ongoing discord between India and Pakistan. ‘Another India’ by @pratinavanil.bsky.social reveals the history of Muslims in India post-independence. 'Essential reading' - @litreview.bsky.social ➡️ tinyurl.com/325ts9yz

Fascinating review by @pratinavanil.bsky.social of a new Mark Twain biography. I had no idea he had an “Aquarium Club” of “Angelfish” (10 to 16-year-old girls) who he used to dote on in letters and in person www.thetimes.com/culture/book...

On Mark Twain for @thetimes.com: www.thetimes.com/culture/book...

On the Mitteleuropean migrants who made Britain. My latest for the @theguardian.com: www.theguardian.com/books/2025/a...

🇮🇳📚 Early stock alert! Now available in pb, order @pratinavanil.bsky.social sky.social's Another India at 25% discount w/code ANIL25 here ➡️ tinyurl.com/ykvyu3cm ‘Successfully punctures the myth that the secularism of Nehru’s India was a golden age for Indian Muslims.’ @thespectator1828.bsky.social

Honoured and thrilled in equal measure to be a judge on this year's @BGPrize

'Taylor, belongs to that rare class of writers who can effortlessly encompass both scientific arcana and intellectual currents. There are some deliciously provocative passages in this book' @pratinavanil.bsky.social reviews Impossible Monsters @theguardian.com www.theguardian.com/books/2024/m...

Don't apply for the position of royal harem manager Some advice on negotiating the job market in 16th-century Istanbul My lead review in @thetimes.com: www.thetimes.com/culture/book...

Sue Prideaux ‘is one of the finest biographers working today. She also has a feel for place: life in Polynesia was tough’ @pratinavanil.bsky.social reviews Wild Thing (@faberbooks.bsky.social) in @thetimes.com www.thetimes.com/culture/book...

Minority Rule: Adventures in the Culture War by Ash Sarkar – identity fraud

On Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam in British India - for the @Lit_Review I enjoyed @waatcoconut.bsky.social's breezy, confident survey of Indo-European encounters from 1600: literaryreview.co.uk/praise-the-l...

Never kidnap the sultan’s chief eunuch Some advice on negotiating the 16th century My lead review in @thetimes.com: www.thetimes.com/culture/book...

On the world’s kleptocrats and their British enablers - via Sheikh Hasina and Tulip Siddiq My latest for @unherd: unherd.com/2025/01/how-...

“Good”, “average”, “rubbish”. On Stalin's side hustle as a laconic music critic, and some reflection on a culture that took high culture seriously - perhaps too seriously My latest for the @thetimes.com: www.thetimes.com/culture/book...

The new Sino-Indian War British historians have been appropriated by nationalists or if you prefer, The Golden Road vs The Silk Road Pratinav Anil opens 2025 by declaring historiographical war between Beijing & New Delhi unherd.com/2025/01/the-...

Ringing in the New Year with a historical beef that never was. Frankopan vs Dalrymple Silk Roads vs The Golden Road For @unherd.bsky.social: unherd.com/2025/01/the-...

On fin-de-siècle Indian art and politics, via the new @barbicancentre.bsky.social show, for @engelsbergideas.bsky.social: engelsbergideas.com/reviews/imag...

Churchill’s England is dead. I’m back in @unherd.bsky.social: unherd.com/2024/11/what...

I'm back in the @theguardian.com, recommending Tim Blanning's brilliant biography of Augustus the Strong, fox-tossing voluptuary and cut-price Louis XIV: www.theguardian.com/books/2024/n...