Culture
Computer science
Don’t count on it
Walking with the devil
Do leaders shape great events—and great evils? Or are events in charge? To this old puzzle about Hitler, a new biography gives a definitive answer
Writers in profile
Life at the Sharpe end
A new series about the Hundred Years’ war confirms Bernard Cornwell as one of Britain’s finest writers of historical fiction
Dust and decay
The joy of specks
The Balkans
Blame the rest
Recent Italian novels
Spirits of invention
A womanising gumshoe, anti-corporate satire, literary memories, men from Mars and KGB moles. These are all themes in current Italian fiction
Political theory
Forgotten value
French literature