Contemporary Review articles from August 2004

Contemporary Review archives from August 2004

Putin pursues Russia's oil oligarchs.(Vladimir Putin )
August 1, 2004... PRESIDENT Vladimir Putin could not have chosen his time with greater luck, foresight or care for the Kremlin's looming confrontation with the oligarchs. Troubled by record high oil prices, all the moneymen of the world are nervously watching...

Israeli society and secular marriage.
August 1, 2004... WHEN thinking about weddings, most people imagine a romantic picture. But what happens when the state intrudes upon this romantic picture? In ancient Greece encouraging marriage was considered one of the duties of the state, since marriage had...

Reviewing Africa's tribes and borders.
August 1, 2004... UNLIKE hyphenated Americans, most Africans are not mere ethnics who wear funny hats and eat indigestible food on the national day of their old country. They are proud tribes people. They honour their ancestors, respect traditional customs and...

Michael Oakeshott: Rationalism and self-serving in Politics.
August 1, 2004... MICHAEL Oakeshott's essay 'Rationalism in Politics', first published in The Cambridge Journal in 1947 and reprinted in Oakeshott's 1962 volume Rationalism in Politics: and Other Essays, is generally recognized to be the most important single...

The Kennedy chieftains and American politics.
August 1, 2004... A MONTH after John F. Kennedy's assassination in November 1963, Theodore H. White, prize-winning author of The Making of the President books, convinced skeptical Life Magazine editors that Camelot, 'that once peculiar spot' where Arthurian...

Gender and daily life in Ethiopia.
August 1, 2004... SCHOOL starts in Wereilu at 7.45 a.m. with the flag ceremony. The students are lined up in somewhat orderly rows by their class leaders while a few of the teachers oversee the process, swishing small switches recently torn from nearby...

Illustrious Arab poets through the centuries.
August 1, 2004... 'I've left my heart in the hands of God in Baghdad I said good bye to him when I wished instead, That I would say good bye to the days of my life'. ACCORDING to an Iraqi admirer, in his...

Tamara Lempicka at the Royal Academy.
August 1, 2004... THE Royal Academy has been benign in granting Tamara Lempicka, who is mentioned in few histories of modern art, the recognition she sought and often deserved. Fifty-eight of her paintings are at present on view in the Sackler Gallery under the...

Brazil's native Indians.(Book Review)
August 1, 2004... Die If You Must: Brazilian Indians in the Twentieth Century. John Hemming. Macmillan. [pounds sterling]30.00. 855 pages. ISBN 1-4050-0095-3. Whenever Marshal Candido Mariano da Silva Rondon, the first head of the Brazilian Indian...

Moshe Dayan: Israel's Heroic Icon.(Book Review)
August 1, 2004... Moshe Dayan. Martin Van Creveld. Weidenfeld and Nicolson. [pounds sterling]14.99. 223 pages. ISBN 0-297-84669-8. Moshe Dayan is the ultimate icon of Israel's heroic age. His Zionist credentials were impeccable. He grew up as a kibbutznik in...

Churchill's Boffin--Frederick Lindemann.(Book Review)
August 1, 2004... Prof: The Life of Frederick Lindemann. Adrian Fort. Jonathan Cape. [pounds sterling]18.99. viii + 374 pages. ISBN 0-224-06317. Frederick Lindemann, Churchill's friend and adviser for over thirty years, was a truly remarkable man. He came...

A history of the eighth Army.(Book Review)
August 1, 2004... 8th ARMY: From the Western Desert to the Alps. Robin Neillands. John Murray. [pounds sterling]20.00. 452 pages. ISBN 0-7195-5642-2. The 8th Army is special in the history of World War II. In North Africa, it represented the whole Free World...

Van Gogh's letters.(Book Review)
August 1, 2004... The Letters of Vincent van Gogh to His Brother and Others 1872-1890. Elfreda Powell, editor. Constable. [pounds sterling]12.99. ISBN 1-84119-711-4. Whenever this reviewer sees tourists carrying round the characteristic triangular shaped...

A seminal decade in British Cinema.(Book Review)
August 1, 2004... British Cinema of the 1950s: The Decline of Deference. Sue Harper and Vincent Porter. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]65.00. 409 + ix. ISBN 0-19-815934-X. Professors Harper and Porter give a detailed analysis of a seminal decade...

Heloise and Abeland--love in the Twelfth Century.(Book Review)
August 1, 2004... Heloise & Abelard: A Twelfth-Century Love Story. James Burge. Profile Books. [pounds sterling]16.99. xv + 301 pages. ISBN 1-86197-417-5. Were Heloise and Abelard just another pair of star-crossed lovers, consumed by a passion that was...

The world of paperbacks.(Bibliography)
August 1, 2004... GRANTA BOOKS has issued a paperback edition of Malise Ruthven's A Fury for God: The Islamist Attack on America. Of the many studies written on this subject this must stand as the most incisive and this edition, labelled as 'revised and updated'...

Literary Occasions: Essays. V. S. Naipaul.(Book Review)
August 1, 2004... Literary Occasions: Essays. V. S. Naipaul. Pankaj Mishra, editor. Picador. [pounds sterling]16.99. xvi + 203 pages. ISBN 0-330-42022-4. This collection of Naipaul's essays, first published in the United States by Knopf, begins with his article,...

The Long Sexual Revolution: English Women, Sex, and Contraception 1800-1975.(Book Review)
August 1, 2004... The Long Sexual Revolution: English Woman, Sex, and Contraception 1800-1975. Hera Cook. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]35.00. xiv + 412 pages. ISBN 0-19-925239-4. This book, which began life as a doctoral thesis, is mainly concerned...

Spitfire Ace.(Book Review)
August 1, 2004... Spitfire Ace. Martin Davidson and James Taylor. Channel 4 Books. [pounds sterling]20.00. 256 pages. ISBN 0-7522-2511-1. The place occupied by the Battle for Britain and, in particular, the Spitfire aeroplane, in Britons' sense of themselves is...

The Alhambra.(Book Review)
August 1, 2004... The Alhambra. Robert Irwin. Profile Books. [pounds sterling]15.99. vii + 214 pages. ISBN 1-86197-412-4. The Alhambra, as Mr Irwin reminds readers, is 'the finest example of a mediaeval Muslim palace' in Western Europe and the only such building...

The Oxford Dictionary of Art.(Book Review)
August 1, 2004... The Oxford Dictionary of Art. Ian Chilvers, editor. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]25.00. xlvi + 816 pages. ISBN 0-19-860476-9. This classic reference work, first published in 1988, has been comprehensively rewritten and enlarged for...

Parliament and Foreign Policy in the Eighteenth Century.(Book Review)
August 1, 2004... Parliament and Foreign Policy in the Eighteenth Century. Jeremy Black. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]45.00 (US$70.00). xiii + 261 pages. ISBN 0-521-83331-0. In this study Prof. Black looks not only at Parliament's role in the...

The Oxford English Literary History.(Book Review)
August 1, 2004... The Oxford English Literary History. Volume 13. 1948-2000. The Internationalization of English Literature. Bruce King. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]30.00. xiv + 386 pages. ISBN 0-19-818428-X. In this last volume of O.U.P.'s history...

Conquerors of Time: Exploration and Invention in the Age of Daring.(Book Review)
August 1, 2004... Conquerors of Time: Exploration and Invention in the Age of Daring. Trevor Fishlock. John Murray. [pounds sterling]25.00. xx + 44 pages. ISBN 0-7195-5517-5. This survey history is concerned with 'exploration in the broadest sense, in the...

European Integration and Political Conflict.(Book Review)
August 1, 2004... European Integration and Political Conflict. Gary Marks and Marco R. Steenbergen, editors. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]45.00 (US$75.00) xiv + 280 pages. ISBN 0-521-53505-0. The eleven papers in this collection began life as...

The Poetical Works of Robert Browning Volume IX The Ring and the Book Books IX-XII.(Book Review)
August 1, 2004... The Poetical Works of Robert Browning Volume IX The Ring and the Book Books IX-XII. Stefan Hawlin and T. A. J. Burnett, editors. Clarendon Press, Oxford. [pounds sterling]85.00. xix + 408 pages. ISBN 0-19-818671-1. This ninth volume in what has...

The Fly in the Cathedral: How a Small Group of Cambridge Scientists Won the Race to Split the Atom.(Book Review)
August 1, 2004... The Fly in the Cathedral: How a Small Group of Cambridge Scientists Won the Race to Split the Atom. Brian Cathcart. Viking. [pounds sterling]14.99. xii + 308 pages. ISBN 0-670-88321-2. In this account the author puts a human face on scientific...

Black Earth: Russia after the Fall.(Book Review)
August 1, 2004... Black Earth: Russia after the Fall. Andrew Meier. HarperCollins. [pounds sterling]25.00. ix + 511 pages. ISBN 0-00-711323-4. Mr Meier was Time magazine's Moscow correspondent from 1997 to 2001 although his knowledge of the city and country...

The Last Medieval Queens: English Queenship 1445-1503.(Book Review)
August 1, 2004... The Last Medieval Queens: English Queenship 1445-1503. J. L. Laynesmith. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]30.00. xviii + 294 pages. ISBN 0-19-924737-4. This impressive study sets out to answer the question, 'What did it mean to be a...

The Jesuits: Missions, Myths and Histories.(Book Review)
August 1, 2004... The Jesuits: Missions, Myths and Histories. Jonathan Wright. HarperCollins. [pounds sterling]20.00. ix + 334 pages. ISBN 0-00-257180-3. By the middle of the sixteenth century the Society of Jesus was 'the most vibrant, most provocative...

Men of Blood: Violence, Manliness and Criminal Justice in Victorian England.(Book Review)
August 1, 2004... Men of Blood: Violence, Manliness and Criminal Justice in Victorian England. Martin J. Wiener. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]45.00 (US$70.00). xvi + 296 pages. ISBN 0-521-83198-9. This book, which combines cultural history and...

The Burma Road: The Epic Story of One of World War II's Most Remarkable Endeavours.(Book Review)
August 1, 2004... The Burma Road: The Epic Story of One of World War II's Most Remarkable Endeavours. Donovan Webster. Macmillan. [pounds sterling]18.99. iv + 370 pages. ISBN 1-4050-4146-3. This title, which was first published in the U.S., investigates one of...

Dick Turpin: The Myth of the English Highwayman.(Book Review)
August 1, 2004... Dick Turpin: The Myth of the English Highwayman. James Sharpe. Profile Books. [pounds sterling]18.99. xi + 258 pages. ISBN 1-86197-298-9. This book grew out of Prof. Sharpe's interest in English crime and criminals in the sixteenth to...

A Concise History of Germany.(Book Review)
August 1, 2004... A Concise History of Germany. Mary Fulbrook. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]40.00 (US$60.00). xviii + 277 pages. ISBN 0-521-54071-2. This volume in Cambridge's 'concise history' series was first published in 1991 and then revised...

The Lion and the Tiger: The Rise and Fall of the British Raj, 1600-1947.(Book Review)
August 1, 2004... The Lion and the Tiger: The Rise and Fall of the British Raj, 1600-1947. Denis Judd. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]14.99. xiii + 240 pages. ISBN 0-19-280358-1. This short survey begins with the sixteenth century although Prof. Judd...

Elizabeth Barrett Browning.(Book Review)
August 1, 2004... Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Simon Avery and Rebecca Stott. Longman. [pounds sterling]21.99 p. b. x + 254 pages. ISBN 0-582-40470-3. This volume in Longman's Studies in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Literature begins with a reminder that in...