Contemporary Review articles from December 2005

Contemporary Review archives from December 2005

Human rights in the UK--7/7 and its aftermath.
December 1, 2005... Editors's Note: Last month Tony Blair's government suffered its first parliamentary defeat since taking office in 1997. Forty-nine Labour MPs joined forces with the Opposition in rejecting the Prime Minister's plea to allow the police to hold...

Understanding North Korea's new nuclear accord.
December 1, 2005... IT is an historical irony that the most reclusive country of Northeast Asia--indeed, probably the most reclusive in the world--has become the epicentre of strategic concern, both regionally and globally. Indeed, North Korea, a non-viable state,...

Democracy comes of age in Somaliland.(northern part of Somalia)
December 1, 2005... THE rising sun reveals two long lines of people snaking towards a small concrete polling station in Gabiley, a town in rural Somaliland. Many of them have walked considerable distances and queued all night in order to vote in these, the first...

Socialist society in the Seychelles.
December 1, 2005... THERE are three major destinations for the Indian Ocean island traveller, each with its own special attraction but equally distinctive drawback. Reunion, which still belongs to France, has gigantic, towering mountains but a rather standoffish...

The serene and tragic faces of Amritsar.(India)
December 1, 2005... MRS Bhandari, bent double over her walking stick and supported by her middle-aged daughter as she takes her daily stroll at dusk around the gardens of her elegant villa, is one of Amritsar's most distinctive echoes of the Raj. Now in her...

Self-portraits at the National Portrait Gallery.
December 1, 2005... CURIOSITY to know what artists looked like is natural, and especially pertinent when we come across their self-portraits, since their self-portraits are part of their achievement. Obligingly, the National Portrait Gallery has gathered together...

Art notes: Samuel Palmer at the British Museum.
December 1, 2005... On can now enter the Golden Age by way of Great Russel Street. The British Museum, in collaboration with the New York Metropolitan Museum, is celebrating Samuel Palmer's 200th birthday with an exhibition of some 130 pictures by Palmer, with a...

A murder for Christmas.(Twentieth-Century Crime Fiction)(Book Review)
December 1, 2005... I am no gambler--having profited from the practical lesson learnt when, after placing a 100 to 1 bet on Golden Miller in 1934, the year he won the Grand National, the bookie welched on me, and paid out not a single one of my cigarette-card...

Inside No. 10 with Harold Wilson.(Downing Street Diary: With Harold Wilson in No. 10)(Book Review)
December 1, 2005... Downing Street Diary: With Harold Wilson in No. 10. Bernard Donoughue. Jonathan Cape. [pounds sterling]25.00. xii + 785 pages. ISBN 0-224-04022-7. Sometimes a diary diminishes the diarist. Bernard Donoughue's is a shocking example. As you...

The betrayal of Eritrea.(I Didn't Do It For You: How the World Betrayed a Small African Nation)(Book Review)
December 1, 2005... I Didn't Do It For You: How the World Betrayed a Small African Nation. Michela Wrong. Fourth Estate. [pounds sterling]15.99. 288 pages. ISBN 0-00-715392-9. Michela Wrong's second book is an interesting exercise in the attempt to get inside...

Cap Badges & Battle Honours: the regiment today.(A Review of Military Identities: The Regimental System and the British People)(Book Review)
December 1, 2005... A Review of Military Identities: The Regimental System & the British People. David French. Oxford University Press. x + 404 pages. [pounds sterling]45.00. ISBN 0-19-925803-1. The jacket for this book says it is an iconoclastic study. This...

Scotland and England over 600 years.(The Thistle and the Rose: Six Centuries of Love and Hate between the Scots and the English)(Book Review)
December 1, 2005... The Thistle and the Rose: Six Centuries of Love and Hate between the Scots and the English. Allan Massie. John Murray. [pounds sterling]20.00. x + 326 pages. ISBN 7195-59999-5. Allan Massie is best known as a novelist, though his...

A new look at India's Thugs.(Thug: The True Story of India's Murderous Cult)(Book Review)
December 1, 2005... Thug: The True Story of India's Murderous Cult. Mike Dash. Granta Books. [pounds sterling]20.00. xxiii + 356 pages. ISBN 1-86207-604-9. Mike Dash is to be congratulated on two counts. One is the serious, meticulous, historic research and...

Churchill and Lloyd George.(David and Winston: How a Friendship Changed History)(Book Review)
December 1, 2005... David & Winston. How a Friendship Changed History. Robert Lloyd George. John Murray. [pounds sterling]20.00. xv + 303 pages. Blood is thicker than water--but is it stronger than printer's ink? This is the question invariably raised by...

Recent history as seen by Gavin Hewitt.(A Soul on Ice: A Life in News)(Book Review)
December 1, 2005... A Soul on Ice: A Life in News. Gavin Hewitt. Macmillan. [pounds sterling]20.00. xii + 353 pages. ISBN 1-4050-4738-0. On Wednesday, 13 August 2003, Gavin Hewitt, BBC special correspondent, faced the probing lens of the TV camera for once...

The world of paperbacks.
December 1, 2005... Among new titles from OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS we have a paperback edition of Bruce Redford's 2001-2 Lyell Lecture in Bibliography on Designing the Life of Johnson ([pounds sterling]16.99), one of the most stimulating contributions towards our...

Nell Gwyn: A Biography.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2005... Nell Gwyn: A Biography. Charles Beauclerk. Macmillan. [pounds sterling]20.00. x + 432 pages. ISBN 0-333-90471-0. This biography of Charles II's famous 'Protestant whore' is by the Earl of Burford, a direct descendant who has had access to...

Keeping Their Place: Domestic Service in the Country House.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2005... Keeping Their Place: Domestic Service in the Country House. Pamela Sambrook. Sutton Publishing. [pounds sterling]20.00. xvi + 224 pages. ISBN 0-7509-3559-6. Pamela Sambrook has made herself into something of an expert in the vanished world of...

The Orientalist: In Search of a Man Caught Between East and West.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2005... The Orientalist: In Search of a Man Caught Between East and West. Tom Reiss. Chatto & Windus. [pounds sterling]17.99. xxix + 433 pages. ISBN 0-701-17885-X. This biography, which was first published in the U.S., began with a search for Kurban...

Luxury and Pleasure in Eighteenth-Century Britain.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2005... Luxury and Pleasure in Eighteenty-Century Britain. Maxine Berg. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]25.00. xvii + 373 pages. ISBN 0-19-927208-5. This book examines a neglected aspect of the 'industrial revolution', namely the manufacture...

Russia's Empires: Their Rise and Fall, from Prehistory to Putin.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2005... Russia's Empires: Their Rise and Fall: From Prehistory to Putin. Philip Longworth. John Murray. [pounds sterling]25.00. xvii + 398 pages. ISBN 0-7195-6204-X. Prof. Longworth, who has written on and taught Russian history for many years, has...

John the Painter: Terrorist of the American Revolution.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2005... John the Painter: Terrorist of the American Revolution. Jessica Warner. Profile Books. [pounds sterling]15.99. xiii + 298 pages. ISBN 1-86197-663-1. This title, first published in the U.S. by Thunder's Mouth Press, is based on a large amount of...

National Portrait Gallery Insights: The Pre-Raphaelite Circle.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2005... National Portrait Gallery Insights: The Pre-Raphaelite Circle. Jan Marsh. National Portrait Gallery. [pounds sterling]9.99. 128 pages. ISBN 1-85514-352-6. This short study is of both the Pre-Raphaelite movement in Victorian art and of the men...

Einstein: Decoding the Universe.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2005... Einstein: Decoding the Universe. Francoise Balibar. David J. Baker & Dorie B. Baker, translators. Thames & Hudson. [pounds sterling]6.95 p.b. 144 pages. ISBN 0-500-30117-4. This volume, taken from the French, is published as part of Thames &...

My Life as a Spy.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2005... My Life as a Spy. Leslie Woodhead. Macmillan. [pounds sterling]16.99. vii + 247 pages. ISBN 1-4050-4086-6. The author was awarded the C.B.E. for his work as a documentary film maker. In this autobiography he concentrates on his time as a...

Men of Honour: Trafalgar and the Making of the English Hero.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2005... Men of Honour: Trafalgar and the Making of the English Hero. Adam Nicolson. HarperCollins. [pounds sterling]16.99. xxiv + 341 pages. ISBN 0-00-719209-6. Those writers who set out to produce books to mark the 250th anniversary of Trafalgar in...

A Comparative Study of Referendums: Government by the People.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2005... A Comparative Study of Referendums: Government by the People. Matt Qvortrup. Manchester University Press. [pounds sterling]14.99 p.b. ISBN 0-7190-7181-X. This is a second edition of a study first published in 2002. In that first edition the...

A New History of Western Philosophy: Medieval Philosophy, vol. 2.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2005... A New History of Western Philosophy. Volume II: Medieval Philosophy. Anthony Kenny. Clarendon Press, Oxford. [pounds sterling]17.99. xvii + 334. ISBN 0-19-875275-X. In his second of four volumes Sir Anthony takes his history of Western...

The Imaginary Autocrat: Beau Nash and the Invention of Bath.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2005... The Imaginary Autocrat: Beau Nash and the Invention of Bath. John Eglin. Profile Books. [pounds sterling]20.00. xii + 292 pages. ISBN 1-86197-302-0. The life and adventures of Richard Nash (1674-1761), known to history as 'Beau Nash', are 'a...

Keeping Up Appearances: Fashion and Class Between the Wars.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2005... Keeping Up Appearances: Fashion and Class Between the Wars. Catherine Horwood. Sutton Publishing. [pounds sterling]20.00. viii + 208 pages. ISBN 0-7509-3957-5. Many people assume that strict dress codes vanished with the end of the Victorian...

Yet More Adventures with Britannia: Personalities, Politics and Culture in Britain.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2005... Yet More Adventures with Britannia: Personalities, Politics and Culture in Britain. W.R. Louis, editor. I.B. Tauris. [pounds sterling]24.95. x + 419 pages. ISBN 1-84511-092-7. This is the fourth collection of lectures delivered by visiting...

Doctor Faustus.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2005... Doctor Faustus. Christopher Marlowe. David Scott Kastan, editor. W.W. Norton. [pounds sterling]7.99 p.b. xviii + 430 pages. ISBN 0-393-97754-4. This latest number in Norton's renowned 'Critical Edition' series is unusual because it has two...

Medici Money: Banking, Metaphysics, and Art in Fifteenth-Century Florence.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2005... Medici Money: Banking, Metaphysics, and Art in Fifteenth-Century Florence. Tim Parks. Profile Books. [pounds sterling]15.99. xiii + 273 pages. ISBN 1-86197-791-3. In this history of the rise and fall of the Medicis' financial empire the...

The Cambridge Companion to Willa Cather.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2005... The Cambridge Companion to Willa Cather. Majrilee Lindemann, editor. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]45.00 (US$65.00). xx + 229 pages. ISBN 0.-521-82110-X. To the editor, Willa Cather remains one of the United States' greatest...

J.M.W. Turner: The Man Who Set Painting on Fire.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2005... J.M.W. Turner: The Man Who Set Painting on Fire. Olivier Meslay. Ruth Sharman, translator. Thames & Hudson. [pounds sterling]6.95 p.b. 159 pages. ISBN 0-500-30118-2. This new title in Thames & Hudson's New Horizons series gives a short and...

Muslims: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2005... Muslims: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices. Andrew Rippin. Routledge. [pounds sterling]55.00. xii + 371 pages. ISBN 0-415-34888-9. The first edition of Prof. Rippin's study of the Moslem religion was published in two volumes in 1990 and...

The Bible and Empire: Postcolonial Explorations.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2005... The Bible and Empire: Postcolonial Explorations. R.S. Sugirtharajah. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]45.00 (US$75.00). vi + 247 pages. ISBN 0-521-82493-1. This book looks at the effect of the Bible's introduction on indigenous...

Scotland: A History.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2005... Scotland: A History. Jenny Wormald, editor. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]25.00. xxi + 380 pages. ISBN 0-19-820615-1. In the editor's words, this is a collection 'about a remarkably positive, confident, and successful kingdom' and...

The Selected Political Writings of John Locke.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2005... The Selected Political Writings of John Locke. Paul E. Sigmund, editor. W.W. Norton. [pounds sterling]7.99. xxxix + 404 pages. ISBN 0-393-96451-5. John Locke remains arguably Britain's greatest, or at least most influential, political...

Time Present and Time Past: The Art of John Everett Millais.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2005... Time Present and Time Past: The Art of John Everett Millais. Paul Barlow. Ashgate. [pounds sterling]55.00. ix + 229 pages. ISBN 0-7546-3297-0. In this perceptive and well argued study Mr Barlow offers a re-evaluation of Millais and challenges...

The Routledge Companion to the Study of Religion.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2005... The Routledge Companion to the Study of Religion. John R. Hinnells, editor. Routledge. [pounds sterling]65.00. xii + 556 pages. ISBN 0-415-33310-5. This large collection of thirty essays from scholars in Britain, Canada, and the U.S. looks 'at...

Rome or Death: The Obsessions of General Garibaldi.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2005... Rome or Death: The Obsessions of General Garibaldi. Daniel Pick. Jonathan Cape. [pounds sterling]16.99. xxvi + 288 pages. ISBN 0-224-07179-3. Prof. Pick is at first sight an unusual writer on Italian affairs as his expertise is in...

Late Imperial Russia: Problems and Prospects, Essays in Honour of R.B. McKean.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 1, 2005... Late Imperial Russia: Problems and Prospects. Essays in Honour of R.B. McKean. Ian D. Thatcher, editor. Manchester University Press. [pounds sterling]50.00. ISBN 0-7190-6786-3. vii + 208 pages. This collection of ten essays into the history of...