The Latest Breaking News from Mary Beard

This week’s bookcase includes reviews of She’s A Killer by Kirsten McDougall and Murder On The Dance Floor by Shirley Ballas.

Twenty years on, London’s gathering of gallerists and collectors is big business but it began as a gamble inspired by the success of Tate Modern

The historian was speaking amid a trend on social media that highlights how often men ponder the time of togas, swords and emperors.

The classicist on autocrats ancient and modern, free speech in universities and whether Twitter has been a force for good

Saied Dai’s painting captures the former PM’s sternness and stoicism, her failure and her femininity. But it also raises questions about how artists use male traits to depict female leaders

Wagner leader’s abortive mutiny was an irrevocable step that may yet have serious consequences

After some hard-fought victories, women’s rights are threatened again in many parts of the world. In the United States, the Supreme Court overturned women’s right to abortion in June 2022; women have also been leaving the workforce since the COVID-19 pandemic, in many cases to care for children and elderly…

There’s an entitlement around going grey that’s reserved just for men. It cuts to the heart of male privilege, reckons Oliver Keens, in a world where women who go grey are mostly scorned. Isn’t it time to re-evaluate the cliché of the wise, sophisticated and desirable grey-topped gent?

The classicist on life on the culture wars’ frontline, what she owes her mother – and how pizza shaped her TV career