Contemporary Review articles from December 2004

Contemporary Review archives from December 2004

The 2004 Australian election.
December 1, 2004... JOHN HOWARD is the marathon runner of Australian politics. He has been an MP for thirty years and on 9 October he won a fourth term as Prime Minister. He is set to become the country's second longest serving Prime Minister (behind his hero Sir...

The dangers of wearing glasses: intellectual opposition to liberalism in contemporary Britain.
December 1, 2004... 'There's no doubt he's an educated man: a former university lecturer in Sociology and Economics, which makes him dangerously articulate'. Kirsty Lang, BBC News Correspondent, on Pim Fortuyn, May 2002. ONE of the most extreme actions of...

British official attitudes regarding anti-war protesters in two World Wars.
December 1, 2004... IN this article I will show that, while in the First World War 1914-1918 there was much less unanimity, much less uniformity in thinking about the causes, justifications and objectives of the war with Germany, but also much greater official...

The Enawene of Brazil and education.
December 1, 2004... THE history of contact between the indigenous peoples of Brazil and mainstream Brazilian society has been a tale of disaster. Since the Portuguese colonists first sent expeditions into the interior to seize land and slaves for the sugar mills...

Raphael at the National Gallery.(Critical Essay)
December 1, 2004... THE National Gallery is celebrating its costly purchase of a dubious Raphael by holding an exhibition, under the title of Raphael: from Urbino to Rome, mostly of his undisputed pictures. It is indeed, as the gallery and some press commentators...

The Green Baize Door: social identity in Wodehouse part one.
December 1, 2004... HE stands, looking relaxed and tanned, beside a beautiful and elegant young woman. He is dressed in leisure clothes, a neat logo on the breast pocket of his shirt. He looks what he claims to be, her friend, confidant and protector, a smiling,...

Five poems.(Poem)
December 1, 2004... 1. A Birth (For Frank Barnaby) How distant: like vultures. The multiplying patrol of military satellites encircles the green and throbbing earth in patient precision. All has been said and nothing has been resolved. Our leaders are...

New Year in St. Petersburg.
December 1, 2004... Ahush fell. Dinner in the St. Petersburg Hotel's large restaurant came to a halt as all eyes focused on the television. It was a few minutes to mid-night on 31 December 2003 and President Putin--St. Petersburg born and bred--was about to give...

The structure of Stalin's rule 1945-1953.(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... Cold Peace: Stalin and the Soviet Ruling Circle, 1945-1953. Yoram Gorlizki and Oleg Khlevniuk. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]25.00. ix + 248 pages. ISBN 0-19-516581-0. It is surprising how much there is still to discover about...

The truth behind the Murder of Father Popieluszko.(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... To Kill a Priest. The Murder of Father Popieluszko and the Fall of Communism. Kevin Ruane. Gibson Square. [pounds sterling]16.99. 385 pages. ISBN 1-903933-54-4. Anyone wishing to understand the nature of Communist rule in the former Soviet...

A stimulating look at Scotland's recent history.(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... Modern Scotland 1914-2000. Richard Finlay. Profile Books. [pounds sterling]20.00. 424 pages. ISBN 1-86197-299-7. Richard Finlay, director of the Research Centre in Scottish History at Strathclyde University in Glasgow, provides a welcome...

Revisionism and the Labour Party.(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... The Labour Governments 1964-1970 Volume 1: Labour and Cultural Change. Steven Fielding. Manchester University Press. [pounds sterling]45.00. x + 259 pages. ISBN 0-7190-4364-6. Volume 2: International Policy. John W. Young. Manchester University...

Rupert Hart-Davis: a vanished Man of Letters.(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... Rupert Hart-Davis: Man of Letters. Philip Ziegler. Chatto & Windus. [pounds sterling]20.00. 332 pages. ISBN 0-7011-7320-3. The procession of worthwhile, some, indeed, distinguished, books which bear the imprint 'Rupert Hart-Davis'...

The Story behind Venice's bronze Horses.(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... The Horses of St Mark's: A Story of Triumph in Byzantium, Paris and Venice. Charles Freeman. Little, Brown. [pounds sterling]16.99. xv + 298 pages. ISBN 0-316-86118-9. The handsome horses of the title of this erudite work are bronze...

Robert Browning as widower.(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... Robert Browning: A Life After Death. Pamela Neville-Sington. Weidenfeld and Nicolson. [pounds sterling]20.00. 340 pages. ISBN 0-297-64396-7. Pamela Neville-Sington made a very wise and effective decision in planning her narrative ploy for...

The World of paperbacks.
December 1, 2004... Among new titles from OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS reference works lead the way. The first three deal with religion: Peter and Linda Murray's Oxford Dictionary of Christian Art ([pounds sterling]9.99), W. R. F. Browning's A Dictionary of the Bible...

The Long Summer: How Climate Changed Civilization.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... The Long Summer: How Climate Changed Civilization. Brian Fagan. Granta Books. [pounds sterling]20.00. xix + 284 pages. ISBN 1-86207-644-8. This title, first published in the U.S., was inspired by the debate over 'global warming'. The author, an...

A History of Poland.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... A History of Poland. Anita J. Prazmowska. Palgrave Macmillan. [pounds sterling]14.99 p.b. xii + 242 pages. ISBN 0-333-97254-6. This short history, part of the Palgrave Essential Histories series, begins by reminding readers that 'Polish history...

The Elizabeth Icon: 1603-2003.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... The Elizabeth Icon: 1603-2003. Julia M. Walker. Palgrave Macmillan. [pounds sterling]25.00. xii + 232 pages. ISBN 1-4039-1199-1. In this study Prof. Walker looks at the survival of Elizabeth I's 'carefully constructed public persona' in the 400...

Cultural Non-Conformity in Early Modern Florence.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... Cultural Non-Conformity in Early Modern Florence. Domenico Zanre. Ashgate. [pounds sterling]40.00. xiii + 190 pages. ISBN 0-7546-3007-2. The survival of the nonconforming writer in a conformist society, whether it be politically correct Britain...

Jacques Derrida: Critical Thought.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... Jacques Derrida: Critical Thought. Ian Maclachlan, editor. Ashgate. [pounds sterling]47.50 xii + 166 pages. ISBN 0-7546-0806-9. This collection of nine essays plus an introduction by the editor, are 'substantial pieces illuminating important...

Humphry Davy: Life Beyond the Lamp.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... Humphry Davy: Life Beyond the Lamp. Raymond Lamont-Brown. Sutton Publishing. [pounds sterling]18.99. xv + 199 pages. ISBN 0-7509-3231-7. Sir Humphry Davy is usually remembered as the inventor of the miners' safety lamp. In this delightful,...

Juan Carlos: A People's King.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... Juan Carlos: A People's King. Paul Preston. HarperCollins. [pounds sterling]25.00. ix + 614 pages. ISBN 0-00-255632-4. Prof. Preston, the author of numerous studies of Spanish history, here turns his attention to King Juan Carlos whose life has...

Aurel Stein on the Silk Road.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... Aurel Stein on the Silk Road. Susan Whitfield. The British Museum Press. [pounds sterling]18.99. 143 pages. ISBN 0-7141-2416-8. The author, who has already published Life Along the Silk Road, here concentrates on the Hungarian explorer, Aurel...

The Poems and Plays of Isaac Rosenberg.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... The Poems and Plays of Isaac Rosenberg. Vivien Noakes, editor. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]90.00. xlviii + 427 pages. ISBN 0-19-818715-7. This new edition of the war poet's works is presumably meant to replace that published in...

The Herbalist: Nicholas Culpeper and the Fight for Medical Freedom.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... The Herbalist: Nicholas Culpeper and the Fight for Medical Freedom. Benjamin Woolley. Harper Collins. [pounds sterling]16.99. xi + 402 pages. ISBN 0-00-712657-3. Nicholas Culpepper, the posthumous son of a country clergyman, gained fame in...

Tolkien and the Invention of Myth: a Reader.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... Tolkien and the Invention of Myth: A Reader. Jane Chance, editor. The University Press of Kentucky. [pounds sterling]24.95. US$35.00. xx + 340 pages. ISBN 0-8131-2301-1. As Prof. Chance writes in the Preface, this collection of eighteen essays...

Women in England 1760-1914: A Social History.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... Women in England 1760-1914: A Social History. Susie Steinbach. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. [pounds sterling]25.00.x + 342 pages. ISBN 0-297-84266-8. Prof. Steinbach has set herself an enormous task, to discuss the 'restrictions within which' women...

Leviathan after 350 Years.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... Leviathan after 350 Years. Tom Sorell and Luc Foisneau, editors. Clarendon Press, Oxford. [pounds sterling]40.00. x + 308 pages. ISBN 0-19-926461-9. This collection of twelve papers, from scholars in Britain, France, the Netherlands and the...

A Bird in the Bush: A Social History of Birdwatching.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... A Bird in the Bush: A Social History of Birdwatching. Stephen Moss. Aurum Press. [pounds sterling]16.99. vii + 375 pages. ISBN 1-85410-993-6. For centuries human beings were interested in birds mainly as food, or in relation to religious...

Riviera: the Rise and Rise of the Cote d'Azur.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... Riviera: the Rise and Rise of the Cote d'Azur. Jim Ring. John Murray. [pounds sterling]17.99. xvi + 256 pages. ISBN 0-7195-5692-9. In this examination of the 100 mile stretch of land between Hyeres and Nice Mr Ring concentrates on the influence...

The Victorians and the Eighteenth Century: Reassessing the Tradition.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... The Victorians and the Eighteenth Century: Reassessing the Tradition. Francis O'Gorman and Katherine Turner, editors. Ashgate. [pounds sterling]47.50. xvi + 268 pages. ISBN 0-7546-0718-6. As the editors put it, this collection of eleven essays...

Westminster Abbey.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... Westminster Abbey. Richard Jenkyns. Profile Books. [pounds sterling]15.99. v + 217 pages. ISBN 1-86197-648-8. This third volume in Profile's 'Wonders of the World' series is a masterpiece of condensation, or should we say, condensing. The...

Bloody Foreigners: The Story of Immigration to Britain.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... Bloody Foreigners: The Story of Immigration to Britain. Robert Winder. Little, Brown. [pounds sterling]20.00. xii + 403 pages. ISBN 0-316-86135-9. The provocative title of this history is the clue to its approach: 'Britain has absorbed foreign...

Great Southern Land: A New History of Australia.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... Great Southern Land: A New History of Australia. Frank Welsh. Allen Lane. [pounds sterling]25.00. xxxviii + 720 pages. ISBN 0-713-99450-9. The (English) author's enthusiasm for Australia--'probably the most successful society in the world and...

The Girl in Rose: Haydn's Last Love.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... The Girl in Rose: Haydn's Last Love. Peter Hobday. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. [pounds sterling]18.99. xi + 228 pages. ISBN 0-297-84747-3. This is a charming biography of Rebecca Schroeter, nee Scott, the English-woman married to a German musician...

Learning from Palladio.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... Learning from Palladio. Branko Mitrovic. W.W. Norton. [pounds sterling]40.00. 224 pages. ISBN 0-393-73116-2. Dr. Mitrovic is right to call the sixteenth century Italian, Andrea di Pietro dalla Gondola, otherwise known as Palladio, 'Europe's...

Codename Tricycle: The True Story of the Second World War's Most Extraordinary Double Agent.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... Codename Tricycle: The True Story of the Second World War's Most Extraordinary Double Agent. Russell Miller. Secker & Warburg. [pounds sterling]16.99. xiii + 290 pages. ISBN 0-436-21023-1. The author has taken advantage of recently released...

The Legacy of the Soviet Union.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... The Legacy of the Soviet Union. Wendy Slater and Andrew Wilson, editors. Palgrave Macmillan. [pounds sterling]45.00. xii + 275 pages. ISBN 14039-1786-8. This valuable collection investigates the effect of the USSR's collapse on the fifteen...

Lincoln's Avengers: Justice, Revenge, and Reunion after the Civil War.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... Lincoln's Avengers: Justice, Revenge, and Reunion after the Civil War. Elizabeth D. Leonard. W.W. Norton. [pounds sterling]19.99. xviii + 367 pages. ISBN 0-393-04868-3. The truism that victors write history underlies this study into the effects...

An End to Poverty? A Historical Debate.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... An End to Poverty? A Historical Debate. Gareth Stedman Jones. Profile Books. [pounds sterling]9.99 p.b. ix + 278 pages. ISBN 1-86197-729-8. This book was written to tie in with the Anglo-American Conference of the Institute of Historical...

The Exiled Collector: William Bankes and the Making of an English Country House.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... The Exiled Collector: William Bankes and the Making of an English Country House. Anne Sebba. John Murray. [pounds sterling]22.50. xi + 308 pages. ISBN 0-7195-6328-3. William Bankes was born into a wealthy landed family in Dorset, was at...

Charlemagne's Tablecloth: A Piquant History of Feasting.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... Charlemagne's Tablecloth: A Piquant History of Feasting. Nichola Fletcher. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. [pounds sterling]20.00. xiii + 256 pages. ISBN 0-297-84343-5. The author begins her history by first defining what a feast is and is not and by...

Jane Carlyle: Newly Selected Letters.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... Jane Carlyle: Newly Selected Letters. Kenneth J. Fielding & David R. Sorensen, editors. Ashgate. [pounds sterling]50.00. xxxii + 334 pages. ISBN 0-7546-0137-4. As the fame of Thomas Carlyle fades that of his wife grows, chiefly because of her...

Under the Wire: How the Telegraph Changed Diplomacy.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... Under the Wire: How the Telegraph Changed Diplomacy. David Paull Nickles. Harvard University Press. [pounds sterling]19.95. v + 265 pages. ISBN 0-674-01035-3. In this careful and very useful study Mr Nickles turns his attention to the effect of...

Get Rommel: The Secret British Mission to Kill Hitler's Greatest General.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... Get Rommel: The Secret British Mission to Kill Hitler's Greatest General. Michael Asher. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. [pounds sterling]20.00. 303 pages. ISBN 0-297-84685-X. This is the history of 'Operation Flipper', the secret plot to send men by...

Ireland and the British Empire.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... Ireland and the British Empire. Kevin Kenny, editor. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]30.00. xxiv + 296 pages. ISBN 0-19-925183-5. This volume, and companion volumes on Gender and Empire and Black Experience and the Empire are part of...

Pushing Time Away: My Grandfather and the Tragedy of Jewish Vienna.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... Pushing Time Away: My Grandfather and the Tragedy of Jewish Vienna. Peter Singer. Granta Books. [pounds sterling]15.99. xv + 254 pages. ISBN 1-86207-696-0. It was Metternich who prayed that God would help the Jews if the Austrian Empire ever...

The World of Christopher Marlowe.
December 1, 2004... The World of Christopher Marlowe. David Riggs. Faber and Faber. [pounds sterling]25.00. xiii + 411 pages. ISBN 0-571-22159-9. Marlowe remains one of the most fascinating of English dramatists but the difficulty in writing about him is the...

Fighting for Human Rights.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2004... Fighting for Human Rights. Paul Gready, editor. Routledge. [pounds sterling]55.00. x + 198 pages. ISBN 0-415-31291-4. In Britain and 'Europe', 'Human Rights' is a big growth area both for academics and lawyers. Having said that, violation of...