Contemporary Review articles from December 2006

Contemporary Review archives from December 2006

Latin America's true colours.
December 22, 2006... WHEN I was about to finish my studies in 2003, I was feeling very anxious about finding a job as a journalist. I saw that many of my colleagues ended up in the ever expanding world of PR or became corporate employees, and I didn't want that to...

Globalization and the new world order.
December 22, 2006... THE process of globalization is the biggest change to the world order for 350 years. This article describes both the old world order and the new world order. The process of change is called 'globalization'. This means the erosion of national...

Rebuilding Afghanistan five years after the collapse of the Taliban.
December 22, 2006... ARMED conflict among Afghanistan's Islamic groups soon after they seized power in April 1992 and especially the Taliban's rule (1996-2001) destroyed much of the country's infrastructure as well as claiming the lives of thousands of innocent...

The Swiss referendum on asylum seekers.
December 22, 2006... 'I should vote. It's one of the things which identifies me as a Swiss'. So said a Swiss Italian student, considering whether or not to vote in one of the many ballots which take place in the Swiss constitutional system. Only with some...

Art notes: portraits by David Hockney.(Brief article)
December 22, 2006... The exhibition, David Hockney Portraits, at the London National Portrait Gallery (12 October 2006-21 January 2007) occupies nine rooms. Two of the earlier works are briefly noted here. Visitors will find much more in his work. E.M. Foster...

Terrorism in Southeast Asia: Australia's security threat and response.
December 22, 2006... TERRORISM can be defined as 'a form of psychological warfare that is used to create extreme fear through the use of threat of force against non-combatant civilian military targets'. [1] Terrorism is as much about psychological maiming as it is...

Vanuatu Survivor.(Travel narrative)
December 22, 2006... THANKS to the television series, Survivor, millions have now heard of Vanuatu, that archipelago of a nation in the South Pacific. But not even mountain mavens realize that for a true 'reality' experience you need to traipse across Vanuatu's...

Elsheimer and Velazquez in London.(Adam Elsheimer and Diego Velazquez)
December 22, 2006... ONLY once in four centuries have almost all the paintings of Adam Elsheimer (1578?-1610) been shown together. The exhibition travelled from Frankfurt am Main to Edinburgh before finally alighting at the Dulwich Gallery, in South London (20...

Bob Dylan and the ageing of the West.
December 22, 2006... THE West is getting older fast, the result of fewer babies and longer life. Today, life expectancy throughout the Western world is around 80 years, compared to less than 50 at the beginning of the last century. In the UK, the percentage of...

Art and artistic sensibility in London today.
December 22, 2006... FOR hundreds of years Europeans saw the city as a place of variety and opportunity. One of Samuel Johnson's obiter dicta was, 'When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life'. However, around the year 1800--almost two decades after Dr...

The road to Timbuktu.(Travel narrative)
December 22, 2006... THE name Timbuktu still stirs the imagination. That mysterious place of legendary wealth and learning which has acted as a magnet through several centuries while becoming synonymous with going to the end of the world--or even to hell. Yet there...

Mischief in the British Museum.(Robert Dighton )
December 22, 2006... ON 28 June 1806, a brief but tantalizing note appeared in The Times announcing that a robbery of a 'curious nature' had occurred in the British Museum. The report went on to say that a considerable number of valuable prints had been stolen, one...

The funding of Islamist terrorism.(Book review)
December 22, 2006... Alms for Jihad: Charity and Terrorism in the Islamic World. J. Millard Burr and Robert O. Collins. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]19.99 (US$30.00). xx + 348 pages. ISBN 0-521-85730-9. At a moment when Muslim demands for a veto...

WTO's trade rounds: a call for reform.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2006... Fair Trade For All: How Trade Can Promote Development. Joseph E. Stiglitz and Andrew Charlton. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]15.99. xxvii + 315 pages. ISBN 0-19-929090-3. This book is about reforming the World Trade Organization...

A themeless history of modern America.(Restless Giant: The United States from Watergate to Bush v. Gore)(Book review)
December 22, 2006... Restless Giant: the United States from Watergate to Bush v. Gore. James T. Patterson. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]25.00. xv + 448 pages. ISBN 0-19-512216-X. James T. Patterson fails to find a theme in this, the latest, volume...

The fate of democracy in Russia.(Democracy Derailed in Russia: The Failure of Open Politics)(Book review)
December 22, 2006... Democracy Derailed in Russia: The Failure of Open Politics. M. Steven Fish. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]45.00 (US$75.00). xviii + 313 pages. ISBN 0-521-61896-7. All is not well in Putin's Russia. The rules of democratic...

The Somme remembered.(Somme: The Heroism and Horror of War)(Through German Eyes: The British and the Somme 1916)(Somme 1916: A Battlefield Companion)(The Somme)(Book review)
December 22, 2006... Somme: The Heroism and Horror of War. Martin Gilbert. John Murray. [pounds sterling]20.00. xix + 332 pages. ISBN 0-7195-6863-3. Through German Eyes: The British and the Somme 1916. Christopher Duffy. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. [pounds...

John Wilkes--the flawed Crusader for liberty.(John Wilkes: The Scandalous Father of Civil Liberty)(Book review)
December 22, 2006... John Wilkes: The Scandalous Father of Civil Liberty. Arthur H. Cash. Yale University Press. [pounds sterling]20.00. xiii + 482pp. ISBN 0-300-10871-0. John Wilkes (1726-97) occupies a prominent place in the history of English political...

Who was the real Shakespeare?(The Truth Will Out: Unmasking the Real Shakespeare)(Book review)
December 22, 2006... The Truth Will Out: Unmasking the Real Shakespeare. Brenda James and William D Rubinstein. Pearson Longman. [pounds sterling]25.00. 360 pages. ISBN 1-4058-2437-9. This is a startling and brave book which advances another author for...

John Snow and the defeat of cholera.(The Medical Detective: John Snow and the Mystery of Cholera)(Book review)
December 22, 2006... The Medical Detective: John Snow and the Mystery of Cholera. Sandra Hempel. Granta Books. [pounds sterling]18.99. xi + 306 pages. ISBN 1-86207-842-4. A great plague, like one of those with which Egypt was stricken in Pharaonic times, swept...

A new look at the Second World War.(Blood, Sweat and Arrogance: And the Myths of Churchill's War)(Book review)
December 22, 2006... Blood, Sweat and Arrogance: and the Myths of Churchill's War. Gordon Corrigan. Weidenfeld and Nicholson. [pounds sterling]20.00. 495 pages. ISBN 0-297-84623-9. Gordon Corrigan is a retired professional soldier--with the Gurkhas--and a...

Crime and the criminal.(A Land Fit for Criminals: An Insider's View of Crime, Punishment and Justice in England and Wales)(Book review)
December 22, 2006... A Land Fit for Criminals: An Insider's View of Crime, Punishment and Justice in England and Wales. David Fraser. Book Guild Publishing. [pounds sterling]17.99. xxvii + 458 pages. ISBN 1-85776-964-3. A large number of different skills are...

Making sense of the Bible.(How to Read the Bible: History, Prophecy, Literature--Why Modern Readers Need to Know the Difference, and What It Means for Faith Today)(Book review)
December 22, 2006... How To Read the Bible: History, Prophecy, Literature--Why Modern Readers Need to Know the Difference, and What It Means for Faith Today. Steven L. McKenzie. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]15.99 ix + 207 pages. ISBN 0-19-516149-1. ...

The world of paperbacks.(Bibliography)
December 22, 2006... HARPER PERENNIAL has recently released a treasure trove of new titles including Germaine Greer's The Female Eunuch ([pounds sterling]8.99) which, after its publication in 1970, quickly became a best seller and de facto 'bible' for the feminist...

An Essay concerning Toleration and Other Writings on Law and Politics 1667-1683.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2006... An Essay concerning Toleration and Other Writings on Law and Politics 1667-1683. John Locke. J.R. Milton and Philip Milton, editors. Clarendon Press. [pounds sterling]65.00. xi + 458 pages. ISBN 0-19-823721-9. This latest volume in the...

Kristallnacht: Prelude to Disaster.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2006... Kristallnacht: Prelude to Disaster. Martin Gilbert. HarperPress. [pounds sterling]14.99. 314 pages. ISBN 0-00-719240-1. This latest volume in HarperPress' Making History series is concerned with one date in German history: 7 November 1938....

The Long March.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2006... The Long March. Sun Shuyun. HarperPress. [pounds sterling]20.00. xi + 302 pages. ISBN 0-00-719479-X. The author, who was born in China, attended both Peking University and Oxford. As she points out, countries or regimes that have a beginning...

The Devil's Doctor: Paracelsus and the World of Renaissance Magic and Science.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2006... The Devil's Doctor: Paracelsus and the World of Renaissance Magic and Science. Philip Ball. William Heinemann. [pounds sterling]20.00. xi + 435 pages. ISBN 0-434-01134-7. The author, an established writer on scientific topics, here tackles one...

Oxford Dictionary of Political Quotations.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2006... Oxford Dictionary of Political Quotations. Antony Jay, editor. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]18.99. xvii + 541 pages. ISBN 0-19-280616-5. This is the third edition of a title, first published in 1996, that has been accorded, in...

Wilfred Thesiger: The Life of the Great Explorer.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2006... Wilfred Thesiger: The Life of the Great Explorer. Alexander Maitland. HarperPress. [pounds sterling]25.00. xv + 528 pages. ISBN 0-00-255608-1. Few biographers are as well placed as Mr Maitland to tackle a life of the late Wilfred Thesiger...

The Beauty of the Cross: The Passion of Christ in Theology and the Arts, from the Catacombs to the Eve of the Renaissance.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2006... The Beauty of the Cross: The Passion of Christ in Theology and the Arts, from the Catacombs to the Eve of the Renaissance. Richard Viladesau. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]19.99. ix + 214 pages. ISBN 0-19-518811-X. In this study,...

The Spirit of Despotism: Invasions of Privacy in the 1790s.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2006... The Spirit of Despotism: Invasions of Privacy in the 1790s. John Barrell. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]50.00. xv + 278 pages. ISBN 0-19-928120-3. This is the author's second study of the 1790s when the fear of the French Revolution...

Don't Mention the War: The British and the Germans since 1890.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2006... Don't Mention the War: The British and the Germans since 1890. John Ramsden. Little, Brown. [pounds sterling]20.00. xiv + 433 pages. ISBN 0-316-86122-7. Prof. Ramsden begins his survey in the late Victorian period and follows a chronological...

England on Edge: Crisis and Revolution, 1640-1642.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2006... England on Edge: Crisis and Revolution 1640-1642. David Cressy. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]25.00. xvi + 446 pages. ISBN 0-19-928090-8. The aim of this detailed study of the two years preceding the outbreak of the First Civil War...

Nothing Like a Dame: The Scandals of Shirley Porter.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2006... Nothing Like a Dame: The Scandals of Shirley Porter. Andrew Hosken. Granta Books. [pounds sterling]20.00. xii + 372 pages. ISBN 1-86207-809-2. The current scandals and exposed corruption besetting HM's present government should not blind us to...

The Glorious Revolution 1688: Britain's Fight for Liberty.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2006... The Glorious Revolution 1688: Britain's Fight for Liberty. Edward Vallance. Little, Brown. [pounds sterling]20.00. vii + 372 pages. ISBN 0-316-72681-8. This book is an exercise in historical reinterpretation. It challenges the accepted Whig...

Return to Akenfield: Portrait of an English Village in the Twenty-First Century.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2006... Return to Akenfield: Portrait of an English Village in the Twenty-First Century. Craig Taylor. Granta Books. When Ronald Blythe's book, Akenfield, was published in 1969 it was a great success. In the event, it was only the latest example of...

In The Bunker with Hitler 23 July 1944-29 April 1945.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2006... In The Bunker with Hitler 23 July 1944-29 April 1945. Bernd Freytag von Loringhoven with Francois d'Alencon. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. [pounds sterling]12.99. 207 pages. ISBN 0-297-84555-1. This is an account by the last survivor from the Berlin...

The Perfect King: The Life of Edward III Father of the English Nation.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2006... The Perfect King: The Life of Edward III Father of the English Nation. Ian Mortimer. Jonathan Cape. [pounds sterling]20.00. xxi + 536 pages. ISBN 0-224-07301-X. Edward III inherited the throne when fifteen in 1327 and reigned until 1377. He...

Roman Britain: A New History.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2006... Roman Britain: A New History. Guy de la Bedoyere. Thames & Hudson. [pounds sterling]24.95. 288 pages. ISBN 0-500-5140-2. With its numerous illustrations (285 of which 75 are in colour) this is a most welcome history of Roman Britain because it...

Seventeenth-Century British Poetry 1603-1660.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2006... Seventeenth-Century British Poetry 1603-1660. John P. Rumrich and Gregory Chaplin, editors. W.W. Norton. [pounds sterling]10.99. xxii + 999 pages. ISBN 0-393-96998-9. This new collection replaces two earlier Norton Critical Editions: Ben Jonson...

Political Ideas in the Romantic Age: Their Rise and Influence on Modern Thought.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2006... Political Ideas in the Romantic Age: Their Rise and Influence on Modern Thought. Isaiah Berlin. Henry Hardy, editor. Chatto & Windus. [pounds sterling]25.00. 1x + 292 pages. ISBN 0-701-17909-0. This work is the longest ever written by Berlin...

British Civilians in the Front Line: Air Raids, Productivity and Wartime Culture, 1939-45.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2006... British Civilians in the Front Line: Air Raids, Productivity and Wartime Culture, 1939-45. Helen Jones. Manchester University Press. [pounds sterling]45.00. ix + 217 pages. ISBN 0-7190-7290-5. This is a fascinating study that will do much to...

Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre: A Casebook.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2006... Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre: A Casebook. Elsie B. Michie, editor. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]45.00. viii + 212 pages. ISBN 0-19-517778-9. This new volume in O.U.P.'s Casebooks in Criticism originated with O.U.P. New York. It...

Wavell: Soldier & Statesman.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2006... Wavell: Soldier & Statesman. Victoria Schofield. John Murray. [pounds sterling]30.00. xv + 512 pages. ISBN 0-7195-6320-8. The author, an established expert on the politics of the sub-continent and south Asia, here turns her attention to one of...

A Village in Sussex: The History of Kingston-near-Lewes.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2006... A Village in Sussex: The History of Kingston-near-Lewes. Charles Cooper. [pounds sterling]29.50. xii + 371 pages. ISBN 1-84511-190-7. This volume, the last written by Prof. Cooper before his death in 2005, is a history of his village,...

Shakespeare's Humanism.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2006... Shakespeare's Humanism. Robin Headlam Wells. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]48.00 (US$85.00). x + 278 pages. ISBN 0-521-82438-9. This exciting study of Shakespeare examines the writer as a man of the Renaissance who shared its...

A Night at the Majestic: Proust and the Great Modernist Dinner Party of 1922.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2006... A Night at the Majestic: Proust and the Great Modernist Dinner Party of 1922. Richard Davenport-Hines. Faber. [pounds sterling]14.99. 358 pages. ISBN 0-571-22008-8. On 18 May 1922, 'a rich, cultivated and cosmopolitan English couple', Violet...

Scourge and Fire: Savonarola and Renaissance Florence.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2006... Scourge and Fire: Savonarola and Renaissance Florence. Lauro Martines. Jonathan Cape. [pounds sterling]20.00. xvi + 336 pages. ISBN 0-224-07252-8. Prof. Martines here combines his expert knowledge of Florentine history with a first-hand...

The Importance of Being Earnest.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2006... The Importance of Being Earnest. Oscar Wilde. Michael Patrick Gillespie, editor. W.W. Norton. [pounds sterling]6.99 p.b. xii + 209 pages. ISBN 0-393-92753-9. In his Preface, Prof. Gillespie argues that the play is not just a 'charming and...

The Bayeux Tapestry: The Life Story of a Masterpiece.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2006... The Bayeux Tapestry: The Life Story of a Masterpiece. Carola Hicks. Chatto & Windus. [pounds sterling]25.00. x + 358 pages. ISBN 0-701-17463-3. This is not just a history of the creation of the Bayeux Tapestry but of 'the effect is has had on...

Dogs of God: Columbus, the Inquisition, and the Defeat of the Moors.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2006... Dogs of God: Columbus, the Inquisition, and the Defeat of the Moors. James Reston, Jnr. Faber and Faber. [pounds sterling]20.00. xx + 364 pages. ISBN 0-571-22126-2. This title, first published in the US by Double-day in 2005, is concerned with...

Mozart: The Early Years, 1756-1781.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2006... Mozart: The Early Years 1756-1781. Stanley Sadie. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]25.00. xxv + 644 pages. ISBN 0-19-816529-3. Mozart: The Golden Years 1781-1791. H.C. Robbins Landon. Thames & Hudson. [pounds sterling]9.95. 272 pages....

The King's Reformation: Henry VIII and the Remaking of the English Church.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2006... The King's Reformation: Henry VIII and the Remaking of the English Church. G.W. Bernard. Yale University Press. [pounds sterling]29.95. xii + 736 pages. ISBN 0-300-10908-3. Prof. Bernard makes his approach clear in his opening sentence: 'Henry...

1854-2004: The Story of the National Gallery of Ireland.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2006... 1854-2004: The Story of the National Gallery of Ireland. Peter Somerville-Large. Paul Holberton. [pounds sterling]40.00 (US $100.00). 477 pages. ISBN 1-904288-08-1. In 1854, the 'Imperial Parliament' in London passed an act to establish a...

The Heart of a Goof.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2006... The Heart of a Goof. P.G. Wodehouse. Everyman. [pounds sterling]10.99. 248 pages. ISBN 1-84159-145-9. Full Moon. P.G. Wodehouse. Everyman. [pounds sterling]10.99. 261 pages. ISBN 1-84159-144-0. Everyman has added these two works to their...

Fightback! Labour's Traditional Right in the 1970s and 1980s.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2006... Fightback! Labour's Traditional Right in the 1970s and 1980s. Dianne Hayter. Manchester University Press. [pounds sterling]60.00. xii + 211 pages. ISBN 0-7190-7270-0. This is the second title in M.U.P's series, Critical Labour Movement Studies...

The Emergency: Neutral Ireland 1939-45.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2006... The Emergency: Neutral Ireland 1939-45. Brian Girvin. Macmillan. [pounds sterling]25.00. xxiii + 385 pages. ISBN 1-4050-0010-4. As Prof. Girvin makes clear, the Republic's neutrality during the Second World War remains essential to an...

London: An Architectural History.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2006... London: An Architectural History. Anthony Sutcliffe. Yale University Press. [pounds sterling]30.00. xii + 349 pages. ISBN 0-300-11006-5. This delightful book is something of a companion to the author's earlier Paris: An Architectural History....

Is There a Duty to Obey the Law?(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2006... Is There a Duty to Obey the Law? Christopher Heath Wellman and A. John Simmons. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]30.00 (US$50.00). xiii + 200 pages. ISBN 0-521-53784-3. This investigation, which originated with C.U.P. New York, is...

An Introduction to Sustainable Development.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2006... An Introduction to Sustainable Development. Jennifer A. Elliott. Routledge. [pounds sterling]70.00. xvii + 283 pages. ISBN 0-415-33558-2. This is the third edition of a text that was first published in 1994 and reflects the new insights and...

Elizabeth's Spy Master: Francis Walsingham and the Secret War that Saved England.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2006... Elizabeth's Spy Master: Francis Walsingham and the Secret War that Saved England. Robert Hutchinson. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. [pounds sterling]20.00. 399 pages. ISBN 0-297-84613-2. The author's previous book, on the last days of Henry VIII, was...

A History of the English Language.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2006... A History of the English Language. Richard Hogg and David Denison, editors. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]75.00 (US$ 140.00). xiii + 495 pages. ISBN 0-531-66227-3. This stimulating collection of essays is aimed at 'senior...

The Almost Impossible Ally: Harold Macmillan and Charles de Gaulle.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2006... The Almost Impossible Ally: Harold Macmillan and Charles de Gaulle. Peter Mangold. I.B. Tauris. [pounds sterling]18.99. vii + 275 pages. ISBN 1-85043-800-5. The post-1940 career of General de Gaulle illustrates the adage that pride does not...

Scandals in Past and Contemporary Politics.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2006... Scandals in Past and Contemporary Politics. John Garrard and James L. Newell, editors. Manchester University Press. [pounds sterling]55.00. xii + 242 pages. ISBN 0-7190-6551-8. This year has been marked by major scandals, financial and sexual,...

Leonardo da Vinci: The Marvellous Works of Nature and Man.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2006... Leonardo da Vinci: The Marvellous Works of Nature and Man. Martin Kemp. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]25.00. xxix + 382 pages. ISBN 0-19-280725-0. It is rare for an author to be allowed to bring out a revised edition of a book...

House of Stone: The True Story of a Family Divided in War-Torn Zimbabwe.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2006... House of Stone: The True Story of a Family Divided in War-Torn Zimbabwe. Christina Lamb. HarperPress. [pounds sterling]14.99. xxviii + 290 pages. ISBN 0-00-721938-5. The author is a foreign affairs correspondent for the Sunday Times and has...