Contemporary Review articles from August 2002

Contemporary Review archives from August 2002

British diplomacy in the Queen's reign: 1952-2002.
August 1, 2002... THERE have been four Queens in modem British history (excluding Mary, the wife of William of Orange who ruled jointly with her husband): Queen Elizabeth I, Queen Anne, Queen Victoria, and our present Queen, Elizabeth II. During the reign of...

North-East Asia and US policy.
August 1, 2002... OF all Asia-related issues, China represents the most daunting challenge for the Bush Administration. The tasks include, among others, (1) to avoid a misapplication of American unilateralism in the region, which relates to the cardinal...

Dutch Italianisers at Dulwich.(Inspired by Italy: Dutch Landscape Painting, 1600-1700, Dulwich Gallery, London, England)
August 1, 2002... THE latest and most ambitious exhibition at the Dulwich Gallery is Inspired by Italy: Dutch Landscape Painting, 1600-1700. Its subject is the many Dutch painters who followed their apprenticeship in Holland with a period of vocational travel in...

Reactions to September 11 in the post-Soviet states.
August 1, 2002... ALL the post-Soviet states condemned the acts of terror against the US last September and expressed their sympathy for the suffering American people. All of them, also, demonstrated their general understanding of the consequent anti-terrorist...

Fifty years of British theatre.
August 1, 2002... IN the last fifty years, British drama has flourished and British theatre has been in an almost constant state of panic. On the one hand, it has been a period which has seen the arrival of ground-breaking plays from John Osborne's Look Back In...

Classic Haydn reissued. (Compact Disc Notice).(Roy Goodman, Hanover Band, Helios label)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2002... Happily amid the declining sales of classical CDs in the UK, one innovative recording company continues to produce outstanding discs. Hyperion, not only carries on completing such important undertakings as the complete Liszt, but it also...

Woburn 1974-2000.(Poem)
August 1, 2002... Editor's Note: One of the unexpected successes of recent BBC television has been a series of programmes about Woburn Abbey. For several centuries this has been the home of one of the most influential families in British history, the Russells,...

A Perspective of Modern Japan. (Reviews).
August 1, 2002... Japan: A Modern History. James L. McClain. W. W. Norton & Company. [pounds sterling]27.50. ISBN 0-393-04156-5. The people of Japan, in all their variations, have constructed their own history in an individualistic way. This is a difficult...

For Queen and Country. (Reviews).(Soldiers: Fighting Men's Lives, 1901-2001)
August 1, 2002... Soldiers: Fighting Men's Lives, 1901-2001. Philip Ziegler. Chatto & Windus. [pounds sterling]20.00. 352 pages. ISBN 0-7011-6954-0. Chelsea Pensioners, resplendent in their scarlet coats and ceremonial tricorn hats, command respect and...

A Literary Critic's View of Christ. (Reviews).(Christ: A Crisis in the Life of God)
August 1, 2002... Christ: A Crisis in the Life of God. Jack Miles. William Heinemann, [pounds sterling]18.99. 384 pages. ISBN 0-434-00737-4. Jack Miles is a former Jesuit, now a 'public intellectual', Getty Trust adviser, and highbrow journalist. He says he...

Hess's Flight to Scotland. (Reviews).(Flight From Reality: Rudolf Hess and His Mission to Scotland, 1941)
August 1, 2002... Flight From Reality: Rudolf Hess and His Mission to Scotland, 1941. David Stafford, editor. Pimlico Original Paperback. [pounds sterling]12.50. 182 pages. ISBN 0-7126-8025-X. Along with the tragic fate of the Romanovs, the Kennedy...

A Francophile on France. (Reviews).(Something to Declare)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2002... Something to Declare. Julian Barnes. Picador. [pounds sterling]8.99 p.b. ISBN 0-330-48916. For Julian Barnes, France is a passion. England is his home, but he drinks regularly and deeply in French culture. In an interesting personal...

Newton: the Self-Made Genius. (Reviews).(Newton: The Making of Genius)
August 1, 2002... Newton: The Making of Genius. Patricia Fara. Macmillan. [pounds sterling]20.00. 347 pages. ISBN 0-333-90735-3. Dr Fara is careful to warn her readers at the beginning of this fascinating and well-researched book that it is not a...

Growing up in Ireland. (Reviews).(An Irish Childhood)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2002... An Irish Childhood. Peter Somerville-Large. Constable. [pounds sterling]14.99. 245 pages. ISBN 1-84119-457-3. There is a genre of memoirs of Irish childhoods that certainly goes back to the eighteenth century: aristocratic, sophisticated in...

New and Noteworthy.(books on language, tanks, travellers' letters, Writers' Britain series)(Brief Article)
August 1, 2002... Language, its history and the rules governing its use, introduce this month's survey. From CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS we have The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language published at [pounds sterling]100.00 or US$150.00 and prepared by...

The World of Paperbacks. (Reviews).(survey of new releases)
August 1, 2002... New releases from PAN BOOKS cover a wide section of the literary waterfront: history, biography, memoirs, economics and popular science. The history titles are David Cordingly's Heroines and Harlots: Women at Sea in the Great Age of Sail...

Alexandra: The Last Tsarina. (Reviews).(Brief Article)
August 1, 2002... Alexandra: The Last Tsarina. Carolly Erickson. Constable. [pounds sterling]14.99. 390 pages. ISBN 1-84119-464-6. This biography, first published in New York by St Martin's Press last year, is by one of the most accomplished of biographers. Dr...

Savage Girls and Wild Boys: A History of Feral Children. (Reviews).(Brief Article)
August 1, 2002... Savage Girls and Wild Boys: A History of Feral Children. Michael Newton. Faber and Faber. [pounds sterling]12.99. 284 pages. ISBN 0-571-20139-3. The subject of 'wild' children has fascinated mankind for centuries. These are children who are...

Reading Clausewitz. (Reviews).(Brief Article)
August 1, 2002... Reading Clausewitz. Beatrice Heuser. Pimlico. [pounds sterling]12.50 p.b. 238 pages. ISBN 0-7126-6484-X. This 'Pimlico Original' takes a new look at one of the most influential books in the history of warfare, Karl von Clausewitz's On War....

Ideal Cities: Utopianism and the (Un) Built Environment. (Reviews).(Brief Article)
August 1, 2002... Ideal Cities: Utopianism and the (Un) Built Environment. Ruth Eaton. Thames & Hudson. [pounds sterling]39.95. 255 pages. ISBN 0-500-34186-9. Ideas about the perfect city have been part of European civilisation from the beginning. Hesiod wrote...

The Peopling of Britain: The Shaping of a Human Landscape. The Linacre Lecture 1999.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2002... The Peopling of Britain: The Shaping of a Human Landscape. The Linacre Lecture 1999. Paul Slack and Ryk Ward, editors. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]50.00. 295 pages. ISBN 0-19-829759-9. This collection of essays, which began life...

A Passion for Egypt: Arthur Weigall, Tutankhamun and the 'Curse of the Pharaohs'.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2002... A Passion for Egypt: Arthur Weigall, Tutankhamun and the 'Curse of the Pharaohs'. Julie Hankey. I. B. Tauris. [pounds sterling]18.95. 380 pages. ISBN 1-86064566-6. In Egypt, then part of the British Empire, the years before the Great War saw an...

Marianne in Chains: In Search of the German Occupation 1940-1945.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2002... Marianne in Chains: In Search of the German Occupation 1940-1945. Robert Gildea. Macmillan. [pounds sterling]20.00. 524 pages. ISBN 0-333-78230-5. Attitudes to the collapse of France in 1940, to the German occupation, the puppet Vichy...

British Government Policy and Decolonisation 1945-1963: Scrutinising the Official Mind.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2002... British Government Policy and Decolonisation 1945-1963: Scrutinising the Official Mind. Frank Heinlein. Frank Cass. [pounds sterling]42.50. 337 pages. ISBN 0-7146-5220-02. This book's analysis of Britain's 'ending of Empire' takes an...

Theodore Rex.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2002... Theodore Rex. Edmund Morris. HarperCollins. [pounds sterling]25.00. 772 pages. ISBN 0-00-217708-0. This biography, first published in the U.S. last year, is about one of the U.S.'s most famous, and most theatrical, Presidents, Theodore...

Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2002... Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper. Nicholson Baker. Vintage. [pounds sterling]7.99 p.b. 370 pages. ISBN 0-099-42903-9. Any library reader who has had to cope with the horrors of microfilm will be attracted to this 'Vintage...

Does Peace Lead to War? Peace Settlements and Conflict in the Modern Age.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2002... Does Peace Lead to War? Peace Settlements and Conflict in the Modern Age. Matthew Hughes and Matthew S. Seligmann. Sutton Publishing. [pounds sterling]20.00. US$29.95.242pages. ISBN0-7509-2514-0. This volume claims to be the first study into...

The Extreme Right in France, 1789 to the Present: From de Maistre to Le Pen.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2002... The Extreme Right in France, 1789 to the Present: From de Maistre to Le Pen. Peter Davies. Routledge. [pounds sterling]55.00. 209 pages. ISBN 0-0-415-23981-8. The recent strong showing by Le Pen's Front National in the first bout of...

The Complete Critical Guide to D. H. Lawrence.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2002... The Complete Critical Guide to D. H. Lawrence. Fiona Becket. Routledge. [pounds sterling]45.00. 186 pages. ISBN 0-415-20251-5. This guide to Lawrence's works is divided into three parts: Life and Contexts, Work and, finally, Criticism. The...

Who Needs Greek? Contests in the Cultural History of Hellenism.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2002... Who Needs Greek? Contests in the Cultural History of Hellenism. Simon Goldhill. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]45.00 (US$65.00). 326 pages. ISBN 0-521-81228-3. The author, Reader in Greek Literature and Culture in Cambridge, is...

Power & Greed: A Short History of the World.(Brief Article)
August 1, 2002... Power & Greed: A Short History of the World. Philippe Gigantes. Constable. [pounds sterling]12.99. 258 pages. ISBN 1-84119-553-7. This is an interesting book by an interesting man, someone who has served in the Royal Navy and the Canadian...

The Last Crusade: The Palestine Campaign in the First World War. (Reviews).(Brief Article)
August 1, 2002... The Last Crusade: The Palestine Campaign in the First World War. Anthony Bruce. John Murray. [pounds sterling]22.50. 299 pages. ISBN 0-7195-5432-2. The history of the British campaign against the Ottoman Empire in Palestine and Syria has been...

Thomas and Jane Carlyle: Portrait of a Marriage. (Reviews).(Brief Article)
August 1, 2002... Thomas and Jane Carlyle: Portrait of a Marriage. Rosemary Ashton. Chatto & Windus. [pounds sterling]25.00. 548 pages. ISBN 0-701-16709-2.It is ironic that Thomas Carlyle, that great voice in Victorian intellectual history, is now remembered by...

Spies Beneath Berlin. (Reviews).(Brief Article)
August 1, 2002... Spies Beneath Berlin. David Stafford. John Murray. [pounds sterling]16.99. 211 pages. ISBN 0-7195-6323-2. This is the story of one of the most extraordinary attempts at surveillance by the West during the Cold War: Operation Stopwatch/Gold....