Book of the week

A thread of celebrity weaves through a masterful study of cults of Christian icons, Helen Fulton finds

Susan Deacy on true immortality

A. W. Purdue on the risky belief that participatory government can always muddle through any crisis

Les Gofton on ‘world families’ and globalisation

Stina Lyon ponders life’s many shades of grey

Conor Gearty on an impassioned attack on ‘imperialism disguised as moralism’

Geraldine Van Bueren lauds a plea to put our passions to work in building a more just society

Kitty Stewart finds wisdom in a study of progress and disparity between nations and people

Roger Morgan on the reasons why so much blood was shed

Sandra Leaton Gray on healthier options for e-junkies

A. W. Purdue on the leader who saw the nuclear future but let it slip

Marianne Elliott on the bloody foundation of a modern state

Robert Eaglestone lauds what will become a standard work in literary criticism

Jill Stephenson praises a study of terror from the skies

Victoria Bateman counts the costs when there’s not enough to go around

Stina Lyon on the personal and emotional costs of a global marketplace where everything’s for sale

Hugh Adlington gains a greater appreciation of one of England’s greatest devotional poets

Annmarie Adams on one man’s quest to find places where form meets libido

Shahidha Bari welcomes a thoughtful look at ordinary anatomy and extraordinary anxiety

Hilary Hinds praises an account of the social shifts discerned in small ads, smooching and soulmates

Graham Farmelo on a scientific giant’s debt to his wife

Gary Day delights in a critique that sweeps aside the perceived gulf between ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture

Roger Morgan on how a liberal doyen blackballed a Red rival

Bryony Randall lauds an insightful and overdue study of literary representations of parenting

A powerful critique of neoclassical economics raises profound questions for all, says Christopher Phelps

Valerie Sanders relishes this considered study of a quietly worthy class of men

Jules Pretty explores the oceans that haunt our imaginations

Alex Danchev applauds a study of one of the 20th century’s greatest thinker-painters

The interwoven tale of the fight over rubber and a visionary surveyor captivates Robert Mayhew

Joanna Bourke reflects on torturers, murderers and the paradoxes of portraying suffering and trauma

Fiona Reid on the military life’s inherent brutality

Unsolicited emails can be a costly nuisance, says John Gilbey

Michelle Harvey agrees with inspiring advice to young science researchers to never forget what initially attracted them to the discipline

Robert Eaglestone extols a great historian’s insights into a great and disquieting writer

Sheila Rowbotham on a crisp portrait of a restless thinker who was neither infallible nor prophetic

Lucy Wooding discusses a fresh examination of fervent belief

Roger Morgan on a great historian’s last essays that illuminate an era of social and artistic change

Ervand Abrahamian ponders how Muslim clerics seized and retained control of modern-day Persia

Shahidha Bari considers an exploration of desire and denial amid Egypt’s shifting sands

Tara Brabazon on the hypocrisy of digital utopianism

David Green on the risks and rewards of medical progress

Vladimir Tismaneanu discusses the revolutionary ambitions of the USSR’s great tyrant

Mary Evans discusses moral panic and girls’ sexualisation

Shahidha Bari on Straw Dogs’ author’s new tricks

Willy Maley identifies an old-fashioned charm in the telling of a tale of two rival, divided cities

Graham Farmelo applauds a tribute to the technological experts who helped the Allies win the Second World War

June Purvis on an absorbing study of social change

Alec Ryrie salutes a committed and critical look at a key event in the history of Catholicism

Shahidha Bari commends an expert guide to figures of foreignness from Coleridge to 9/11

The ‘most authoritative polymath of our age’ offers a reverse recipe very much to Chris Knight’s taste

Biancamaria Fontana admires the courage of two women who dared to enter scientific circles

Richard J. Evans admires exhaustive coverage of an ancient killer that threatens a major comeback

Jon Turney salutes an exhaustive study of the rise and (relative) fall of a brilliant, bewildering mind

Sergio Sismondo on a critical exploration of a new, lucrative model for public well-being

Erika Cudworth considers the ethical dilemmas posed by the decline and death of a beloved ‘pet’

From postulation to discovery: Frank Close weighs up an accessible account of the Higgs boson

This tale of friends, lovers and fighters for political change has epic sweep, says Robin Feuer Miller

It’s not too early to tell who is to blame for the unnecessary death of millions, says Kerry Brown