Contemporary Review articles from April 2002

Contemporary Review archives from April 2002

What next for Kosovo and Macedonia? Findings from a field trip.
April 1, 2002... THE beautiful surroundings of lush tree-lined roads, valleys and snow-covered hills are the former battlegrounds of ethnic hatred in Kosovo and Macedonia. Like any war-torn country the scars of battle are still visible in many of the hamlets...

The September 11 tragedy and the future world order.
April 1, 2002... THE course of international politics changed forever on September 11, 2001 when America was attacked by terrorists who used passenger jets as missiles to kill thousands of innocent civilians by destroying the twin towers of the World Trade...

Reflections from Romania.
April 1, 2002... AS of January 1st 2002, Romanian nationals are no longer required to obtain a visa for visiting Britain and other EU countries. Hardly headline material. The change was opposed by the Italian and Austrian governments, arguing that the benefits...

British society in the Queen's reign.
April 1, 2002... 'WHEN you are faced with any question about any period', said my history master, addressing the Upper Sixth, 'you can always give your essay a respectable-looking opening by saying that it was an age of transition'. After a pause, he added:...

Not Quite Lost London.(Poem)
April 1, 2002... There is a windmill up a side street Down the road from Brixton, thirty feet From Tower Bridge a Roman fosse, A Norman church behind King's Cross; The prehistoric Hackney Brook runs still Under the tarmac at Stamford Hill;...

Will Beijing attack Taiwan?
April 1, 2002... THE understandable concentration on 'the war on terrorism' has meant that the world has paid less attention to other outstanding problems in international affairs. One of the most dangerous of these is the stalemate between Taiwan and mainland...

William Beckford as writer and collector.
April 1, 2002... ALTHOUGH William Beckford wrote a Gothick romance as reckless and immoderate as himself, his life of epic prodigality would arrest attention had he not written a single line. The son of a millionaire Whig magistrate whom Horace Walpole decried...

Michael Longley: Northern Ireland's poet of nature.
April 1, 2002... MICHAEL Longley was born in Belfast in 1939 and was educated at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution. He read classics at Trinity College Dublin and for some years taught in Dublin, London and Belfast. In 1970 he became Director of Combined...

Studying an Ever Changing Japan. (Reviews).
April 1, 2002... Japan Faces the World 1925-1952. Mary L. Hanneman. Longman. [pounds sterling]12.99 p.b. 170 pages. ISBN 0-582-36898-7. Japan in Transformation 1952-2000. Jeffrey Kingston. Longman. [pounds sterling]12.99 p.b. 230 pages. ISBN 0-582-4175-5. ...

Jenkins on Churchill. (Reviews).
April 1, 2002... Churchill. Roy Jenkins. Macmillan. [pounds sterling]30.00. 1002 pages. ISBN 0-333-78290-9. This is a great book. It is the twentieth by Roy Jenkins, and represents the culmination of his work as historian and biographer. Napoleon, perhaps,...

Laurens Van Der Post Exposed. (Reviews).
April 1, 2002... Storyteller. The Many Lives of Laurens van der Post. J. D. F. Jones. John Murray. [pounds sterling]25.00. 505 Pages. ISBN 0-7195-5580-9. Taking his text from Voltaire -- 'To the living we owe respect, to the dead we owe only truth' -- the...

Britain's Christian Identity. (Reviews).
April 1, 2002... The Death of Christian Britain. Callum G. Brown. Routledge. [pounds sterling]40.00. 256 pages. ISBN 01415-18149-6. This book fits into a series on Christianity and the modern world. Its author's argument, testifying that dogmatism at least...

Rock and Pop -- Knowledge and Nostalgia.(The Cambridge Companion to Pop and Rock)
April 1, 2002... The Cambridge Companion to Pop and Rock. Simon Filth, Will Straw and John Street, editors. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]45.00 (US$ 64.95). 303 pages. ISBN 0-521-55369-5. What is the difference between pop and rock? This book...

From the Lighthouse to Monk's House: A Guide to Virginia Woolf's Literary Landscapes.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... From the Lighthouse to Monk's House: A Guide to Virginia Woolf's Literary Landscapes. Katherine Hill-Miller. Duckworth. [pounds sterling]16.99, 328 pages. ISBN 4-7156-2995-6. The aim of this book is to analyse Virginia Woolf's 'delight in...

The Lancashire Working Classes c. 1880-1930.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... The Lancashire Working Classes c. 1880-1930. Trevor Griffiths. Clarendon Press, Oxford. [pounds sterling]55.00. 390 pages. ISBN 0-19-924738-2. Economic historians tend to see the period covered here as vital to the development of a British...

God and Reason in the Middle Ages.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... God and Reason in the Middle Ages. Edward Grant. Cambridge University Press. (pounds sterling)45.00 (US$64.95). 397 pages. ISBN 0-521-80279-2. The author accepts the dictum that Western European civilisation originated during the Middle Ages...

Walpole in Power.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Walpole in Power. Jeremy Black. Sutton Publishing. [pounds sterling]20.00 (US$29.95). 212 pages. ISBN 0-7509-2523-X. The author is one of the most prolific historians and biographers of his generation and in his latest book he tackles the man...

A Life of Sir John Eldon Gorst: Disraeli's Awkward Disciple.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... A Life of Sir John Eldon Gorst: Disraeli's Awkward Disciple. Archie Hunter. Frank Cass. [pounds sterling]35.00 (US$49.50). 305 pages. ISBN 0-7146-5180-X. Sir John Gorst was one of the most fascinating MPs in the nineteenth century. He is...

Primo Levi's Ordinary Virtues: From Testimony to Ethics.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Primo Levi's Ordinary Virtues: From Testimony to Ethics. Robert S. C. Gordon. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]45.00. ISBN 0-19-815963-3. Primo Levi is famous for his using his experiences as a survivor of the Nazis' attempt at a...

Why the West Has Won: Carnage and Culture from Salamis to Vietnam.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Why the West Has Won: Carnage and Culture from Salamis to Vietnam. Victor Davis Hanson. Faber and Faber. [pounds sterling]20.00. 492 pages. ISBN 0-571-20417-1. The author, who has written widely on Classical history, here sets himself a larger...

The Politics of the New South Africa: Apartheid and After.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... The Politics of the New South Africa: Apartheid and After. Heather Deegan. Longman. [pounds sterling]18.99 p.b. 261 pages. ISBN 0-582-36227-0. This survey of recent South African history 'provides an appraisal of critical moments in South...

Anthony Blunt: His Lives.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Anthony Blunt: His Lives. Miranda Carter. Macmillan. [pounds sterling]20.00. 590 pages. ISBN 0-333-63350-4. Writing the lives of traitors is never easy. To denounce them over 590 pages becomes tiresome. To praise them for their betrayal of King...

Flaubert: A Life.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Flaubert: A Life. Geoffrey Wall. Faber and Faber. [pounds sterling]25.00. 413 pages. ISBN 0-571-19521-0. This latest life of Flaubert, whose novels shocked his age and are still read as if just written, is told in the grand style meant to mark...

Napoleon Bonaparte: England's Prisoner.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Napoleon Bonaparte: England's Prisoner. Frank Giles. Constable. [pounds sterling]18.99. 206 pages. ISBN 0-84119-390-9. The author, who worked for many years as The Times' correspondent in Paris, admits in his Introduction that he is not a...

The Sixteenth Century.
April 1, 2002... The Sixteenth Century. Patrick Collinson, editor. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]35.00. 306 pages. ISBN 0-19-820767-0. This latest volume in The Short Oxford History of the British Isles begins and ends with chapters written by the...

The Heart Must Break: The Fight for Democracy and Truth in Burma.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... The Heart Must Break: The Fight for Democracy and Truth in Burma. James Mawdsley. Century. [pounds sterling]17.99. 396 pages. ISBN 0-7126-7921-9. James Mawdsley gained fame in the 1990s for his solitary protest against the Burmese military...

Five Moral Pieces.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Five Moral Pieces. Umberto Eco. Alastair McEwen, trans. Secker & Warburg. [pounds sterling]10.00. 111 pages. ISBN 0-436-41059-1. This collection of five occasional essays by an intellectual and aimed at the intelligentsia were all given as...

Inventing the Victorians.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Inventing the Victorians. Matthew Sweet. Faber and Faber. [pounds sterling]16.99. 264 pages. ISBN 0-571-20658-1. The author, a film critic and something of a man of letters, set out in this book 'to re-imagine the Victorians', to separate myths...

Mary Somerville: Science, Illumination and the Female Mind.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Mary Somerville: Science, Illumination and the Female Mind. Kathryn A. Neeley. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]40.00 (US$64.95). 263 pages. ISBN 0-521-62299-9. This new biography of the nineteenth century's leading female scientist...

Spanish Rome: 1500-1700.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Spanish Rome: 1500-1700. Thomas James Dandelet. Yale University Press. [pounds sterling]25.00. 278 pages. ISBN 0-300-08956-2. This book studies a fascinating period in the history of the City of Rome. The author dates the involvement of the...

The Kindness of Sisters: Annabella Milbanke and the Destruction of the Byrons.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... The Kindness of Sisters: Annabella Milbanke and the Destruction of the Byrons. David Crane. HarperCollins. [pounds sterling]19.99. 293 pages. ISBN 0-00257052-1. The author accepts that 'no English writer has so polarised opinion or posthumously...

Josephine Butler.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Josephine Butler. Jane Jordan. John Murray. [pounds sterling] 22.50. 368 pages. ISBN 0-71955584-1. There have been numerous biographies of the great Victorian campaigner for the rights of down-trodden Victorian women, some more reputable than...