Contemporary Review articles from August 2005

Contemporary Review archives from August 2005

Torture, Truth and Liberty: Placing the Conduct at Abu Ghraib in Context.(Torture and Truth: America, Abu Ghraib, and the War on Terror)(The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib)(Book Review)
August 1, 2005... Editor's Note: The horrific terrorist attacks against London last month are yet further brutal reminders of the problems a civilised country faces when assaulted by savage and indiscriminate killers. Attempts to contain and defeat such...

President Bush, Shcharansky and the tradition of Russian dissent.(George W. Bush, Natan Shcharansky )
August 1, 2005... IN his inaugural speech, President George W. Bush sketched a bold new mission for American foreign policy and proclaimed that the goal of the U.S.A. is to promote liberty all over the world. He sent Condoleezza Rice, the new Secretary of State,...

Gordon Brown's kingdom? Scotland between elections.
August 1, 2005... ANY parliamentary democracy is always 'between elections', but Scotland is now even more so. One result of devolution in Britain and the autonomy of the Scottish Executive and Parliament in much of Scotland's government and legislation has...

Voters in The Netherlands defy the European constitution.
August 1, 2005... AT the start of the summer two founder members of the European Union voted against the new European constitution. Although the results were to be expected, they still sent a shockwave through the political establishment. Both France and the...

Mexico's domestic workers are 'doing it for themselves'.
August 1, 2005... ON the tarmac outside a modern supermarket in Mexico City, the scene looks like a replay of the Spanish conquest: well-heeled white women in designer clothes stride imperiously towards their cars, followed closely by dark-skinned 'girls' aged...

The age of Rembrandt at the Queen's Gallery.
August 1, 2005... NO more than a short walk from Victoria Station and the bustling grime of its forecourt is a haven of tranquil cleanliness, the Queen's Gallery. Since 1962 the gallery has mounted themed exhibitions drawn from some seven thousand paintings in...

That other Eden.(gardening)
August 1, 2005... 'A garden is a lovesome thing, God wot', wrote the Manx poet, Thomas Edward Browne (1830-97). He introduced God into his equation because God had himself introduced man into the Garden of Eden (traditionally said to be located at the junction...

U.S. NATIONALISM AND THE WAR ON TERROR.(America Right or Wrong: An Anatomy of American Nationalism)(Book Review)
August 1, 2005... America Right or Wrong: An Anatomy of American Nationalism. Anatol Lieven. Harper-Collins. [pounds sterling]18.99. xii + 274 pages. ISBN 0-00-716456-4. What impact has nationalism had in shaping the American public's response to the...

WAR AND PEACE IN 1945 AND AFTER.(Poisoned Peace: 1945 - The War that Never Ended)(Book Review)
August 1, 2005... Poisoned Peace: 1945--The War that Never Ended. Gregor Dallas. John Murray. [pounds sterling]25. xx + 739 pages. ISBN 0-7195-5478-0. This book is the fulfilment of a lifetime's vocation, and it shows. Gregor Dallas is a historian who...

WOMEN'S LIVES BEHIND THE VEIL AND THE BARBED WIRE.(The Veiled Kingdom)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
August 1, 2005... The Veiled Kingdom. Carmen bin Ladin. Virago. [pounds sterling]10.99 p.b. x + 209 pages. ISBN 1-84408-102-8. Sharon and my Mother-in-Law: Ramallah Diaries. Suad Amiry. Granta Books. [pounds sterling]12.99. xi + 194 pages. ISBN 1-86207-721-5....

TONY BLAIR AND THE QUEEN'S ENGLISH.(A Load of Blair)(Book Review)
August 1, 2005... A Load of Blair. Jamie Whyte. Corvo Books. [pounds sterling]10.99 p.b. 143 pages. ISBN 0-9543255-5-9. This short book was published before the general election of 2005 to provide seekers after truth among the electorate with a logician's...

PLACING ELIZABETH BOWEN IN THE CANON.(Elizabeth Bowen: The Enforced Return)(Book Review)
August 1, 2005... Elizabeth Bowen: The Enforced Return. Neil Corcoran. Clarendon Press, Oxford. [pounds sterling]45.00. vii + 211 pages. ISBN 0-19-818690-8. Apart from massive figures such as Auden, the forties can be a difficult period to assimilate: the...

THE REAL SHAKESPEARE?(Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare)(Book Review)
August 1, 2005... Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare. Stephen Greenblatt. Jonathan Cape. [pounds sterling]20.00. 430 pages. ISBN 0-2240-6276-X. One's reaction to this book may depend very much on whether one is a scholar of Shakespeare or...

A METICULOUS BIOGRAPHY OF ANTHONY POWELL.(Anthony Powell: A Life)(Book Review)
August 1, 2005... Anthony Powell: A Life. Michael Barber. Duckworth Overlook. [pounds sterling]20.00. xiv + 338 pages. ISBN 0-7156-3049-0. A biography of a novelist will always have the assumed objective of explaining for readers the sources of the...

MACHIAVELLI--A MITIGATION NOT A DEFENCE.(Machiavelli: A Man Misunderstood)(Book Review)
August 1, 2005... Machiavelli: A Man Misunderstood. Michael White. Little, Brown. [pounds sterling]16.99. xvi + 304 pages. ISBN 0-316-72476-9. Convention says that the Florentine civil servant, power-broker and writer, Niccolo Machiavelli, was a nasty piece...

THE WORLD OF PAPERBACKS.
August 1, 2005... Among new titles from PAN BOOKS we have Sir Max Hasting's Armageddon: The Battle for Germany 1944-45 ([pounds sterling]9.99) which is based not just on a wide range of archival material but on interviews with survivors from both the western and...

Emigrant Homecomings: The Return Movement of Emigrants, 1600-2000.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
August 1, 2005... Emigrant Homecomings: The Return Movement of Emigrants, 1600-2000. Marjory Harper, editor. Manchester University Press. [pounds sterling]55.00.xi + 276 pages. ISBN 0-7190-7070-8. Much has been written of emigration from Britain since the first...

Working-Class Organisations and Popular Tourism, 1840-1970.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
August 1, 2005... Working-Class Organisations and Popular Tourism, 1840-1970. Susan Barton. Manchester University Press. [pounds sterling]55.00. xii + 237 pages. ISBN 0-7190-6590-9. This fascinating study seeks to 'examine what the working class and its...

The Imperial War Museum Book of the War at Sea 1914-1918.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
August 1, 2005... The Imperial War Museum Book of the War at Sea 1914-1918. Julian Thompson. Sidgwick & Jackson. [pounds sterling]25.00. xxx + 466 pages. ISBN 0-283-07354-3. The average view of the Navy's role in the 1914-18 war is that, apart from Jutland, it...

Shaping the Nation: England, 1360-1461.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
August 1, 2005... Shaping the Nation: England 1360-1461. Gerald Harriss. Clarendon Press, Oxford. [pounds sterling]35.00. xxi + 706 pages. ISBN 0-19-822816-3. In the seventh volume of the New Oxford History of England, Mr Harriss argues that this period,...

Methodism: Empire of the Spirit.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
August 1, 2005... Methodism: Empire of the Spirit. David Hempton. Yale University Press. [pounds sterling]19.95. xv + 278 pages. ISBN 0-300-10614-9. Prof. Hempton's aim is to explain how a small, eighteenth-century English religious movement had become by the...

Morocco: 5000 Years of Culture.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
August 1, 2005... Morocco: 5000 Years of Culture. Vincent Boele, editor. Lund Humphries. [pounds sterling]35.00. 208 pages. ISBN 0-85331-916-2. This beautifully illustrated book which celebrates the cultural history of Morocco is based on an exhibition staged in...

From Hastings to the Mary Rose: The Great Warbow.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
August 1, 2005... From Hastings to the Mary Rose: the Great Warbow. Matthew Strickland and Robert Hardy. Sutton Publishing. [pounds sterling]25.00. xix + 538 pages. ISBN 0-7509-3167-1. For most people the longbow is associated with the great English victory at...

London: A Musical Gazetteer.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
August 1, 2005... London: A Musical Gazetteer. Lewis Foreman and Susan Foreman. Yale University Press. [pounds sterling]15.99 p.b. xii + 372 pages. ISBN 0-300-10402-2. The authors claim that 'this is not intended as a conventional scholarly study' and that may...

Philip Larkin: Early Poems and Juvenilia.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
August 1, 2005... Philip Larkin: Early Poems and Juvenilia. A.T. Tolley, editor. Faber and Faber. [pounds sterling]25.00. XXV + 382 pages. ISBN 0-571-22306-0. Philip Larkin remains one of the most popular poets of twentieth-century English letters; the only...

Trafalgar Square Through the Camera.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
August 1, 2005... Trafalgar Square Through the Camera. Roger Hargreaves. National Portrait Gallery. [pounds sterling]20.00. 120 pages. ISBN 1-85514-345-3. Trafalgar Square has been for many decades a focal point not just for national celebrations but for public...

The English Dane: A Life of Jorgen Jorgenson.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
August 1, 2005... The English Dane: A Life of Jorgen Jorgenson. Sarah Bakewell. Chatto & Windus. [pounds sterling]18.99. xii + 324 pages. ISBN 0-701-17340-8. This biography tells the fascinating story of a man regarded by himself as an 'heroic idealist and...

The Lights that Failed: European International History, 1919-1933.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
August 1, 2005... The Lights that Failed: European International History 1919-1933. Zara Steiner. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]35.00. xv + 938 pages. ISBN 0-19-822114-2. In this latest title in the Oxford History of Modern Europe series the author...

Pacific Paradises: The Discovery of Tahiti and Hawaii.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
August 1, 2005... Pacific Paradises: The Discovery of Tahiti and Hawaii. Trevor Lummis. Sutton Publishing. [pounds sterling]20.00. xi + 212 pages. ISBN 0-7509-3893-5. Tahiti and Hawaii were discovered by Europeans in 1767 and 1776 respectively. This account,...

The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde.(The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: De Profundis 'Epistola, In Carcere et Vinculis', vol. 2)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
August 1, 2005... The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde. Volume 2: De Profundis 'Epistola: In Carcere et Vinculis'. Ian Small, editor. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]80.00. vi + 345 pages. ISBN0-19-811062-3. In this second volume of Wilde's works we have...

The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde.(The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: The Picture of Dorian Gray the 1890 and 1891 Texts, vol. 3)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
August 1, 2005... The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde. Volume 3: The Picture of Dorian Gray The 1890 and 1891 Texts. Joseph Bristow, editor. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]90.000. lxxvii + 465 pages. ISBN 0-19-818772-6. In this third volume the editor...

Douglas Haig: War Diaries and Letters, 1914-1918.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
August 1, 2005... Douglas Haig: War Diaries and Letters 1914-1918. Gary Sheffield and John Bourne, editors. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. [pounds sterling]25.00. X + 550 pages. ISBN 0-297-84702-3. As historical work on the First World War continues so too does the...

Writing the War on Terrorism: Language, Politics and Counter-Terrorism.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
August 1, 2005... Writing the War on Terrorism: Language, Politics and Counter-Terrorism. Richard Jackson. Manchester University Press. [pounds sterling]55.00. vii + 232 pages. ISBN 0-7190-7121-6. As people in the U.K. and Spain have known for decades and as...

Istanbul: Memories of a City.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
August 1, 2005... Istanbul: Memories of a City. Orhan Pamuk. Maureen Freely, translator. Faber and Faber. [pounds sterling]16.99. X + 348 pages. ISBN 0-571-21832-6. As the campaign to add Turkey to the expanding European empire increases, so too does the...

A Brief History of Mutiny.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
August 1, 2005... A Brief History of Mutiny. Richard Woodman. Robinson. [pounds sterling]8.99 p.b. X + 310 pages. ISBN 1-84119-737-8. In this latest number in the Brief History series Mr Woodman points out that 'no two mutinies were quite alike' and one needs to...

The Routledge Companion to European History Since 1763.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
August 1, 2005... The Routledge Companion to European History since 1763. Chris Cook and John Stevenson. Routledge. [pounds sterling]50.00. ix + 493 pages. ISBN 0-415-34583-9. This is the fourth edition of a venerable title which began its life as a Longman...

The Warlords: Hindenburg and Ludendorff.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
August 1, 2005... The Warlords: Hindenburg and Ludendorff. John Lee. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. [pounds sterling]16.99. 207 pages. ISBN 0-297-84675-2. In this joint study Mr Lee, author of A Soldier's Life, a biography of General Sir Ian Hamilton, paints a...

Witchfinders: A Seventeenth-Century English Tragedy.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
August 1, 2005... Witchfinders: A Seventeenth-Century English Tragedy. Malcolm Gaskill. John Murray. [pounds sterling]20.00. xix + 364 pages. ISBN 0-7195-6120-5. This study is concerned with England's one real 'witch-hunt' which took place in East Anglia between...

Witnesses of War: Children's Lives under the Nazis.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
August 1, 2005... Witnesses of War: Children's Lives under the Nazis. Nicholas Stargardt. Jonathan Cape. [pounds sterling]20.00. xvii + 509 pages. ISBN 0-224-06479-7. Of the many books concerned with the Second World War published in recent years, this one...

Walter Sickert: A Life.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
August 1, 2005... Walter Sickert: A Life. Matthew Sturgis. HarperCollins. [pounds sterling]30.00. xv + 768 pages. ISBN 0-00-257083-1. The author, who has already written a biography of Aubrey Beardsley and a study of the Decadents of the 1890s here turns his...

William Shakespeare: The Complete Works.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
August 1, 2005... William Shakespeare: The Complete Works. Stanley Wells, Gary Taylor et al, editors. Clarendon Press, Oxford. [pounds sterling]30.00. lxxv + 1344 pages. ISBN 0-19-926717-0. The publication of Shakespeare's Works under Stanley Wells' direction in...

There You Are: Writings on Irish and American Literature and History: Thomas Flanagan.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
August 1, 2005... There you Are: Writings on Irish and American Literature and History: Thomas Flanagan. Christopher Cahill, editor. New York Review Books and Granta Books. [pounds sterling]16.99. xx + 488 pages. ISBN 1-59017-106-3. Thomas Flanagan (1923-2002)...