Arts and Ideas

Rana Mitter reads a new collection of poetry from the Taliban in a newly translated volume that attempts to get inside the lives of a people little understood in the West. Science writer Philip Ball traces the rise of curiosity back to the 17th century and the Scientific Revolution when it changed from a vice to a virtue. And a review of an exhibition that’s a time capsule of 18th Century loot revealing the tastes, art, books and souvenirs of aristocrats returning from their Grand Tour of Europe.