Scythians

Caspar Meyer is Professor of Classical Archaeology and Material Culture at Bard Graduate Center in New York. He has published widely on ancient Greek and Scythian art, including Greco-Scythian Art and the Birth of Eurasia (2013).

"This bold and ambitious book brings to life the horse-riding peoples of the Eurasian steppe while also exploring the political conditions that have shaped their discovery and study from Imperial Russia to the present. It offers a nuanced account of Western, Russian, and Ukrainian scholarship, presenting major anthropological theories accessibly and vividly illustrating how textual sources and archaeology together illuminate the past." - Karen S. Rubinson, Research Associate, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University"Katherine Mansfield: A Hidden Life by Gerri Kimber is a sensitive and scholarly account of the fiercely independent life of the modernist writer whose talent was the envy of Virginia Woolf." - Fiona Sturges, The Guardian: Best Biographies of 2025"Reappraises the life of the Albanian communist dictator known for his vengefulness but also for his love of Norman Wisdom films." - New Statesman’s Culture Preview 2026: The best non-fiction to read this year"Culture Preview 2026: The best non-fiction to read this year" - New Statesman"Whittaker provides a comprehensive yet sharp history of the uneasy relationship between journalism and technology, from the golden age of print to today’s digital monopolies. He shows how the promises of digital media - pluralism, empowerment, and democratisation - have been undermined by the realities of corporate power, disinformation, and surveillance capitalism. This book combines scholarship with urgency, warning that the future of journalism is inextricably linked with the future of democracy itself. A vital and timely book." - Matt Walsh, Head of Cardiff University School of Journalism, Media and Culture, former journalist and Deputy Editor of the ITV News Channel"The thought of parasites usually evokes a powerful reaction of repugnance. Yet Hall puts a positive spin on this group of biological freeloaders that comprises more than half of all species of life on Earth. Acknowledging that many parasites are pathogens (causing disease in humans, wildlife, plants, and crops), he points out that numerous others function as collaborators or benefactors to their hosts in relationships known as mutualism." - Booklist"This bold and ambitious book brings to life the horse-riding peoples of the Eurasian steppe while also exploring the political conditions that have shaped their discovery and study from Imperial Russia to the present. It offers a nuanced account of Western, Russian, and Ukrainian scholarship, presenting major anthropological theories accessibly and vividly illustrating how textual sources and archaeology together illuminate the past." - Karen S. Rubinson, Research Associate, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University"As Gerri Kimber writes in her fascinating new biography, Mansfield possessed ‘a supreme gift for storytelling that has never been equalled’ . . . Kimber is an authority on Mansfield’s life and work." - The Spectator"We all know what happened: the dumbing down of broadcast news, the collapse of the local press, the proliferation of fake news – and the ruthless dominance of Big Tech. Jason Whittaker offers something new in this brilliant book: a sober dissection of the “why” and, most importantly as we consider AI, an urgent policy-focused exploration of “what next”." - Dave Lee, U.S. technology columnist, Bloomberg Opinion"Enver Hoxha, though he governed a small and obscure country, was one of the great tyrants of the twentieth century. This important book reveals the depth of both his crimes and his vanity, in all their historical and cultural sweep." - Robert D. Kaplan, author of Balkan Ghosts, In Europe’s Shadow, and Adriatic"This is a terrific life of an intriguing poet by one of our great biographers. Peter Ackroyd sensitively explores W. H. Auden's development as a poet, his family, religion (Anglo-Catholic) and relationships. By fleshing out Auden the man, we better understand his verse. One fine writer on another." - Melanie McDonagh, London Standard"Highly evocative, insightful and utterly compelling, Caspar Meyer’s fascinating reassessment of Scythian civilization reshapes our understanding of how Scythian nomads experienced their world. A masterful and often intimate portrait of steppe nomad society, Meyer’s book challenges modern preconceptions and assumptions concerning both their way of life and our own. An astonishing tour de force." - Joseph Skinner, Senior Lecturer in Ancient Greek History, Newcastle University"Marcus Hall takes readers on an illuminating historical tour of the human microbiome, arguing that we should consider extending the conservationist agenda to the many parasites that call us home. The most thought-provoking book I’ve read in ages." - J. R. McNeill, author of The Webs of Humankind and Something New Under the Sun"This book will change everything you thought you knew about parasites. Hall takes us on an exhilarating journey, upending preconceptions and accepted wisdom, and encouraging us to embrace our inner parasites." - Nicole Boivin, Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology and Honorary Professor, School of Social Science, The University of Queensland"Kimber, whose prodigious scholarship (often in collaboration with others) has given us Mansfield’s letters and poems as well as unedited versions of the collected fiction and of archival discoveries that tell us more about her sexuality and relationships. In 2016 she published an account of Mansfield’s early life; now we have this full, studious biography, whose claims rest on complexity and nuance, on hidden facts over rumour." - Sophie Oliver, Literary Review"This critical biography of poet W.H. Auden analyzes his work in the context of his intellectual promiscuity and experiences as a gay man living in the repressive early twentieth century." - Publishers Weekly"The canon of good history books about Albania in English is small, but this is a mighty addition to it. Austin and Hoxha have done a wonderful job in telling the Albanian dictator’s story and setting it in the context of his times. It is full of insights and a solid piece of scholarship." - Tim Judah, special correspondent for The Economist and author of Kosovo: War and Revenge"Despite his importance for the country and the Balkans more generally, Enver Hoxha has yet to find a judicious biography in English. Until now. In measured elegant prose, Robert C. Austin and Artan R. Hoxha give a 360-degree picture of this remarkable, ruthless leader from his middle-class origins to his position of total power. Nobody was safe from Hoxha’s machinations, including some of his most trusted colleagues." - Misha Glenny, author of McMafia and The Balkans"With some new material shedding light on Mansfield’s key personal relationships and a fine appreciation of her literary technique, this is an essential contribution to Mansfield scholarship, not to mention a fascinating read for general audiences." - Library Journal"Peter Ackroyd, the celebrated biographer of T.S. Eliot, has now turned his attention to Eliot’s great successor as an Anglo-American poet. Auden is an eminently readable and well-paced account, rich in anecdote, sympathetically following the man all the way from prodigious youth to senior man of letters." - Seamus Perry, Fellow of Balliol College and Professor of English Literature, University of Oxford"Marcus Hall’s book broadens our view of world health by its laser focus on parasites as a collective protagonist. And more so this book highlights the historical ecology of parasites as a category of the study of affliction. An excellent and challenging book." - James C. McCann, Professor Emeritus of History, Boston University"Most of us are instinctively repulsed by these little freeloaders, but Hall highlights the collateral effects they have on our lifestyles and imaginations . . . Instead of viewing these intimate creatures simply as pathogens that produce disease, [Hall] concludes that many parasites can be re-envisioned as cooperators and symbionts. Humans and their army of parasites march together down life’s path, often to the benefit of each other." - Geographical, Book of the Month"Kimber's own new research about Mansfield's relationships and friendships is a welcome addition to understanding her life." - Fine Books & Collections"This is a glorious treat for all Katherine Mansfield enthusiasts. It’s a painstakingly researched and stylishly told account of Mansfield’s tempestuous life, with much new information, and a sensitive analysis of her brilliant short stories." - Dame Jacqueline Wilson"With its new findings, Katherine Mansfield: A Hidden Life transforms our understandings of Mansfield and of modernism. A world expert on Katherine Mansfield, Gerri Kimber has extensively researched the fascinating entanglements of Mansfield’s life to produce a biography like no other." - Maggie Humm, author of The Bloomsbury Photographs"Gerri Kimber’s much-anticipated biography is one of those once-in-a-decade books that promises to shift by significant degrees our understanding of this leading modernist’s short but intensely lived creative life. Mansfield steps from the pages of Kimber’s carefully researched account in a fresh combination of roles. A Hidden Life also gives us a Mansfield who was not only an innovator of the modernist short story, but also a pioneer in the now boom genre of fictionalised life-writing." - Elleke Boehmer, novelist, Professor of World Literature in English, University of Oxford, and Patron of the Katherine Mansfield Society"What we often think of as experimental fiction, usually considered as part of Modernism at the end of the 19th Century and into the 20th, would not have happened without Katherine Mansfield . . . Gerri Kimber embeds her readings of Mansfield’s stories within a fairly traditional biography, but she is keen to emphasise originality and innovation." - International Times"You will find [the Mansfield story] here in its brilliant light and terrible shadow, its weird Kiwi mix of the banal and the marvellous." - New Zealand Listener"[The book] provides a wealth of new material and insights . . . [Kimber] is good at making connections, at filling out and tightening the narrative. Readings of the stories often provide information when other sources are missing . . . Katherine Mansfield: A Hidden Life expands the Mansfield story, and gives us a writer who is feisty, sexually adventurous, confounded in her ‘messy life’ by disasters of her own making, experiencing extremes of despair and wild exultation, and finally, impressively, making her own reckoning." - Emeritus Professor Janet Wilson, Katherine Mansfield Society Newsletter