Contemporary Review articles from December 2007

Contemporary Review archives from December 2007

Muslim martyrdom: examining a theology for every epoch.(A Review Article of Martyrdom in Islam)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... A Review Article of Martyrdom in Islam by David Cook. Cambridge University Press. 2007. xiv + 206 pages. ISBN 978-0-521-61551-8. ONE senses very early in this outstanding, compact yet extensive, study by a scholar from Rice University,...

Reflecting on the EU's future: an interview with the former Commissioner Frits Bolkestein.(Interview)
December 22, 2007... MOST people talk about the European Union based on their preconceived notions about it. It is rare to get an insight into that body unclouded by platitudes and the obfuscation of Euro-speech. I was fortunate to have an interview with a man who...

America, North Korea and Iran.
December 22, 2007... THE declared view of the Bush Administration is that North Korea is a rogue state with a record of terrorism. It abandoned a 1994 agreement with the Clinton Administration to dismantle its nuclear programme, expelled inspectors from the...

Puerto Rico: beyond 'West Side Story'.
December 22, 2007... THERE is a near constant discussion of the current state of the 'American Empire'. [1] The US is now the global superpower, having taken on that role in World War II, largely as the UK's replacement. [2] Additionally, like any imperial power...

British crime statistics and the need for more prisons.
December 22, 2007... ALL government statements and statistics about crime are a minefield for the British public. They are more often intended to mislead than inform. The recent announcements by Whitehall about the number of serious offences committed by offenders...

Schism and Russia's Old Believers.
December 22, 2007... IN 1682, in a far-off Siberian settlement, the Alternative Pope, or Protopope, was burned at the stake. He was Avvakum, aged 62, the first apostle and chief campaigner of the Russian Schism. His terrible death came after his fifteen-year...

British Multiculturalism under the spotlight.
December 22, 2007... IN October 2006, Jack Straw, a senior member of the Cabinet instigated a long overdue national debate on the merits of current policies of Multiculturalism. As an MP for a Lancashire constituency with a large number of Muslims, he found that...

The EU and the roots of British euroscepticism.(European Union)
December 22, 2007... IT is not difficult to provide a list of reasons for the high degree of scepticism about the EU in Britain, and to agree that each of them contains an element of truth. We can point to the fact that the UK finally managed to join the EC (as it...

The Middle East and the nightmare of nuclear proliferation.(Iran)
December 22, 2007... IRAN has established a string of remote-launching missile bases capable of unmanned precision attacks on Israeli and American targets to deter a projected strike against its nuclear development facilities. Israel has ordered nuclear-capable...

The Mediterranean Union: Sarkozy's 'Grand Design'.(Nicolas Sarkozy)
December 22, 2007... WE are all of us informed by our backgrounds and influenced by our upbringing. Of no-one is this more true than Nicolas Sarkozy, the President of France. Erstwhile first generation immigrant, only one quarter French, even this salient factor...

Art note: the last display at the Hermitage Rooms.(Brief article)
December 22, 2007... Sadly, we must announce the closure of the Hermitage Rooms at Somerset House, London. This joint venture by the Courtauld Institute and the Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, was well administered and publicised with skill and energy, but in the...

Sienese painting at the London National Gallery.
December 22, 2007... 'RENAISSANCE' is so vague a term that trying to date its period precisely is idle. The exhibition, Painting in Renaissance Siena at the Metropolitan Museum, New York, 1988-9, covered the years from 1420 to 1500, which brought in the supreme...

Max Beerbohm: the aesthete before the Internet.
December 22, 2007... ACCORDING to a recent French study we--all of us--do everything much faster than our ancestors did. We not only travel faster, more frequently and generally further, but walk, talk, shop and eat more quickly. Participation is everything and the...

A Roman Empire cruise such as the Romans never had.
December 22, 2007... OUR expedition was billed as a tour of the Roman Empire on a cruise ship with a level of opulence that the ancient Romans never knew, for unless the passenger was Cleopatra, the last Queen of Egypt, ancient sea voyages were uncomfortable,...

Away in a manger.
December 22, 2007... LAST year, as every year, I went rather wearily to the school Nativity play. And last year, as every year, the same story was told. An angel in a white sheet told a curiously unsurprised Mary that she was going to have a baby. Joseph,...

Killing women for honour.(In the Name of Honour: A Memoir)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... In the Name of Honour: A Memoir. Mukhtar Mai with Marie-Therese Cuny. Linda Coverdale, translator. Virago. [pounds sterling]10.99 p.b. xvii + 173 pages. ISBN 978-1-84408-409-8. 'About suffering they were never wrong! The Old Masters... '...

Russian support for Putin's autocracy.(Russia Transformed: Developing Popular Support for a New Regime)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... Russia Transformed: Developing Popular Support for a New Regime. Richard Rose, William Mishler and Neil Munro. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]45.00 (US$85.00). xii + 226 pages. ISBN 978-0-521-69241-0. Russia has resurged...

Nixon, Mao and the triumph of pragmatism.(Seize the Hour: When Nixon Met Mao)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... Seize the Hour: When Nixon Met Mao. Margaret Macmillan. John Murray. [pounds sterling]25.00. xvi + 384 pages. ISBN 0-7195-6522-7. In 1972 President Richard Nixon and his National Security Adviser, Henry Kissinger, visited China, to...

The bleak future for Britain's pensioners.(Late Shift: The Death of Retirement)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... Late Shift: The Death of Retirement. Richard Tomlinson. Politico's. [pounds sterling]18.99. vii + 181 pages. ISBN 978-1-84275-203-6. This imaginatively composed book is based on a large number of interviews with older people, of which the...

Another look at Thomas Hardy.(Thomas Hardy: The Time-Torn Man)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... Thomas Hardy: The Time-Torn Man. Claire Tomalin. Viking. [pounds sterling]25.00. xxv + 486 pages. ISBN 978-0-670-91512-5. Claire Tomalin begins her biography of Thomas Hardy brilliantly, casting chronology aside to describe the most...

The church of England--rip?(Last Rites: The End of the Church of England)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... Last Rites: The End of the Church of England. Michael Hampson. Granta Books. [pounds sterling]12.99 p.b. v + 244 pages. ISBN 1-86207-891-2. When Henry VIII made his one attempt at codifying what he actually believed, and got Parliament to...

1968--the revolution that didn't happen.(The Spirit of '68: Rebellion in Western Europe and North America, 1956-1976)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... The Spirit of '68: Rebellion in Western Europe and North America, 1956-1976. Gerd-Rainer Horn. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]35.00. 254 pages. ISBN 978-0-19-927666-0. The events of May '68 in Paris, when students battled with...

Scribblers, biographers and Robert Walpole.(The Great Man: Scoundrel, Genius and Britain's First Prime Minister)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... The Great Man: Scoundrel, Genius and Britain's First Prime Minister. Edward Pearce. Jonathan Cape. [pounds sterling]25.00. ix + 485 pages. ISBN 978-0-224-07181-9. Sir Robert Walpole has always been subjected to scribblers. In his own...

The man behind Sherlock Holmes.(Conan Doyle: The Man Who Created Sherlock Holmes)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... Conan Doyle: The Man Who Created Sherlock Holmes. Andrew Lycett. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. [pounds sterling]20.00. xv + 527 pages. ISBN 978-0-297-84852-3. One of the bizarreries of the world of publishing seems to be that if it is your...

New and noteworthy.(Everyman Library Classics )
December 22, 2007... EVERYMAN LIBRARY is among the most prolific producers of fine, hardback editions of titles in the literary canon. Recent issues include Paul Scott's famous Raj Quartet in two volumes. These popular novels were first published between 1966 and...

The world of paperbacks.
December 22, 2007... From PICADOR we have Ralph Pite's Thomas Hardy: The Guarded Life ([pounds sterling]8.99) which was praised in this journal for its attempt to go behind the 'public Hardy', which the author so carefully constructed, to reach the man behind the...

Oxford Bible Atlas.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... Oxford Bible Atlas. Adrian Curtis. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]19.99. x + 229 pages. ISBN 978-0-19-100158-1. This is a fourth edition of the best-selling atlas which was first published in 1962 and it replaces the 1984 edition....

Tintoretto.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... Tintoretto. Miguel Falomir, editor. Museo Nacional del Prado and Paul Holberton Publishing. [pounds sterling]50.00. 400 pages. ISBN 978-1-903470-46-6. This magnificent volume was designed as a catalogue to the exhibition of Tintoretto's works...

Dictionary of Liberal Thought.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... Dictionary of Liberal Thought. Duncan Brack and Ed Randall, editors. Politico's. [pounds sterling]35.00. xxiii + 440 pages. ISBN 978-1-84275-167-1. For better or for worse, Britain and her colonies, the United States and, eventually, all Europe...

W.H. Auden: Collected Poems.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... W.H. Auden: Collected Poems. Edward Mendelson, editor. Faber and Faber. [pounds sterling]30.00. xxxi + 929 pages. ISBN 978-0-571-23740-1. This edition has a long history. It was first published in 1976 by Faber which then issued a revised...

The Good Old Days: Crime, Murder and Mayhem in Victorian London.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... The Good Old Days: Crime, Murder and Mayhem in Victorian London. Gilda O'Neill. Viking. [pounds sterling]16.99. xiv + 286 pages. ISBN 978-0-670-91545-3. The author, who made a name for herself by describing life in London's East End, has now...

The War of Wars: The Epic Struggle between Britain and France 1793-1815.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... The War of Wars: The Epic Struggle between Britain and France 1793-1815. Robert Harvey. Constable. [pounds sterling]25.00. xxviii + 804 pages. ISBN 978-1-84119-958-0. Like the Soviet Union in the 1920s, republican France in the 1790s was a...

Stalin's Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939-1953.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... Stalin's Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939-1953. Geoffrey Roberts. Yale University Press. [pounds sterling]25.00. xxii + 468 pages. ISBN 978-0-300-11204-7. This is a study of Stalin's 'military and political leadership in the final and...

The Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... The Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean. John Julius Norwich. Chatto & Windus. [pounds sterling]25.00. xviii + 667 pages. ISBN 978-0-701-17608-2. Lord Norwich likes to tackle large subjects--Byzantine Venice, and the Normans in southern...

Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion. Thomas Lloyd, Julian Orbach and Robert Scourfield. Yale University Press. [pounds sterling]29.95. xxi + 661 pages. ISBN 978-0-300-1-179-9. This, the sixth volume in the Buildings of Wales series, covers...

Tip and Run: The Untold Tragedy of the Great War in Africa.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... Tip and Run: The Untold Tragedy of the Great War in Africa. Edward Paice. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. [pounds sterling]25.00. xxxix + 488 pages. ISBN 978-0-297-84709-0. Mr Paice's aim is to remind modern readers of the role sub-Saharan Africa played...

The Oxford Handbook of British and Irish War Poetry.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... The Oxford Handbook of British and Irish War Poetry. Tim Kendall, editor. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]85.00. xvi + 754 pages. ISBN 978-0-19-928266-1. This interesting collection of thirty-seven essays examines the relationship...

The Order of Merit: One Hundred Years of Matchless Honour.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... The Order of Merit: One Hundred Years of Matchless Honour. Stanley Martin. I.B. Tauris. [pounds sterling]25.00. xviii + 647 pages. ISBN 978-1-86064-848-9. When King Edward VII instituted the Order of Merit he intended to provide a British...

Alexis de Tocqueville: A Biography.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... Alexis de Tocqueville: A Biography. Hugh Brogan. Profile Books. [pounds sterling]30.00. 724 pages. ISBN 978-1-86197-509-6. Tocqueville has long been one of the most quoted writers on serious political topics. This intellectual French aristocrat...

Edmund Curll, Bookseller.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... Edmund Curll, Bookseller. Paul Baincs and Pat Rogers. Clarendon Press, Oxford. [pounds sterling]30.00. x + 388 pages. ISBN 978-0-19-927898-5. The world of eighteenth century publishing was something of a free-for-all in which many leading...

Inferno: The Devastation of Hamburg, 1943.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... Inferno: The Devastation of Hamburg, 1943. Keith Lowe. Viking. [pounds sterling]25.00. xxi + 489 pages. ISBN 988-0-670-91557-6. The author argues that the massive bombing of Hamburg, which preceded that of Dresden by over a year, has been...

The Trojan War: A New History.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... The Trojan War: A New History. Barry Strauss. Hutchinson. [pounds sterling]20.00. xxvii + 258 pages. ISBN 978-0-091-79980-9. Prof. Strauss, who teaches in Cornell University, has written this history with the general reader in mind. Whilst...

The Verneys: A True Story of Love, War, and Madness in Seventeenth-Century England.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... The Verneys: A True Story of Love, War and Madness in Seventeenth-Century England. Adrian Tinniswood. Jonathan Cape. [pounds sterling]25.00. xxii + 570 pages. ISBN 978-0-224-07255-7. With 'love, war and madness' one might think this were a...

Ghost Hunters: William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of Life After Death.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... Ghost Hunters: William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of Life After Death. Deborah Blum. Century. [pounds sterling]17.99. xi + 370 pages. ISBN 978-1-844-13596-7. It was, perhaps, inevitable that the Victorians, both here and in the...

Thomas Paine: His Life, His Time and the Birth of Modern Nations.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... Thomas Paine: His Life, His Time and the Birth of Modern Nations. Craig Nelson. Profile Books. [pounds sterling]20.00. xv + 396 pages. ISBN 978-1-86197-638-3. This title, first published in the US looks at the eighteenth-century American...

St Pancras Station.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... St Pancras Station. Simon Bradley. Profile Books. [pounds sterling]14.99. viii + 193 pages. ISBN 978-1-86197-996-4. In the great nineteenth-century battle between Classical and Gothic, Gothic usually won: one of its greatest achievements was to...

Caravaggio: Painter of Miracles.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... Caravaggio: Painter of Miracles. Francine Prose. HarperPress. [pounds sterling]12.99. 149 pages. ISBN 978-0-00-723066-2. In extenuation for this book it must be said that it is one in a series of introductory, slight and relatively brief...

London in the Nineteenth Century: 'A Human Awful Wonder of God'.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... London in the Nineteenth Century: 'A Human Awful Wonder of God'. Jerry White. Jonathan Cape. [pounds sterling]20.00. xvi + 624 pages. ISBN 978-0-224-06272-5. The nineteenth century saw England become the world's first urban society and London,...

Clean: A History of Personal Hygiene and Purity.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... Clean: A History of Personal Hygiene and Purity. Virginia Smith. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]16.99. xi + 457 pages. ISBN 978-0-19-929779-5. The author's aim in this interesting survey is to trace the history of 'cleanliness' or...

St Peter's.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... St Peter's. Keith Miller. Profile Books. [pounds sterling]15.99. xx + 231 pages. ISBN 978-1-86197-954-4. Mr Miller sets out to describe 'a titanically ambitious architectural project' and then to 'evaluate the result', that is, to judge the...

The Unknown Gulag: The Lost World of Stalin's Special Settlements.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... The Unknown Gulag: The Lost World of Stalin's Special Settlements. Lynne Viola. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]17.99. xxvii + 278 pages. ISBN 978-0-19-518769-4. Of the numberless horrors committed in the name of Communism, Stalin's...

The Cambridge Companion to Francis Burney.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... The Cambridge Companion to Francis Burney. Peter Sabor, editor. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]45.00 (US$85.00). xv + 195 pages. ISBN 978-0-521-61548-8. This collection of ten essays by a panel of British Canadian, Australian and...

Forgotten Wars: The End of Britain's Asian Empire.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... Forgotten Wars: The End of Britain's Asian Empire. Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper. Allen Lane. [pounds sterling]30.00. xxx + 674 pages. ISBN 978-0-713-99782-8. This book is a continuation of the authors' Forgotten Armies: The Fall of British...

The Greek City States: A Source Book.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... The Greek City States: A Source Book. P.J. Rhodes. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]45.00 (US$85.00). xiii + 339 pages. ISBN 978-0-521-61556-3. This is a second edition of Prof. Rhodes' text which was first published in 1986. This...

Black Diamonds: The Rise and Fall of an English Dynasty.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... Black Diamonds: The Rise and Fall of an English Dynasty. Catherine Bailey. Viking. [pounds sterling]20.00. xxiii + 518 pages. ISBN 978-0-670-91542-2. The Fitzwilliam family was for some four centuries one of England's greatest and wealthiest...

Medusa: The Shipwreck, the Scandal, the Masterpiece.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... Medusa: The Shipwreck, the Scandal, the Masterpiece. Jonathan Miles. Jonathan Cape. [pounds sterling]17.99. xiii + 334 pages. ISBN 978-0-224-07303-5. This is the masterful story of one of the world's most famous shipwrecks and paintings. The...

A Concise Introduction to World Religions.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... A Concise Introduction to World Religions. Willard G. Oxtoby and Alan F. Segal, editors. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]36.99 p.b. ix + 584 pages. ISBN 978-0-19-542207-8. This title, which is published only in paperback, originated...

Early Modern Catholicism: An Anthology of Primary Sources.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... Early Modern Catholicism: An Anthology of Primary Sources. Robert S. Miola, editor. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]70.00. xiii + 522 pages. ISBN 978-0-19-925985-4. Recent decades have seen a sea-change in how the religious, social...

A Concise History of Austria.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... A Concise History of Austria. Steven Beller. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]40.00 (US$75.00). xvi + 334 pages. ISBN 978-0-521-47305-5. To write about 'Austria' before 1918 is to write about the Habsburg Monarchy and Mr Beller...

Thomas Cromwell: The Rise and Fall of Henry VIII's Most Notorious Minister.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... Thomas Cromwell: The Rise and Fall of Henry VIII's Most Notorious Minister. Robert Hutchinson. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. [pounds sterling]20.00. vii + 360 pages. ISBN 978-0-297-84642-0. Mr Hutchinson has made a name for himself as an historian of...

Lady Trevelyan and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... Lady Trevelyan and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. John Batchelor. Chatto & Windus. [pounds sterling]25.00. xv + 272 pages. ISBN 978-0-701-172044-3. This biography of Pauline, Lady Trevelyan is a study of the role of the Victorian intellectual...

Squires in the Slums: Settlements and Missions in Late-Victorian London.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... Squires in the Slums: Settlements and Missions in Late Victorian London. Nigel Scotland. I.B. Tauris. [pounds sterling]47.50. xiii + 266 pages. ISBN 978-1-84511-336-0. Of the many imaginative ways in which the churches responded to the creation...

The Rosetta Stone and the Rebirth of Ancient Egypt.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... The Rosetta Stone and the Rebirth of Ancient Egypt. John Ray. Profile Books. [pounds sterling]15.99. viii + 199 pages. ISBN 978-1-86197-334-4. This new addition to the 'Wonders of the World' series looks at the Rosetta stone as 'an icon of...

The Cambridge Companion to Elizabeth Gaskell.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... The Cambridge Companion to Elizabeth Gaskell. Jill L. Matus, editor. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]45.00 (US$85.00). xxi + 211 pages. ISBN 978-0-521-60926-7. This collection of essays makes use of recent work on Mrs Gaskell....

The Daphne du Maurier Companion.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... The Daphne du Maurier Companion. Helen Taylor, editor. Virago. [pounds sterling]9.99 p.b. xxiv + 424 pages. ISBN 978-1-84408-235-3. This paperback original will prove a God-send to those readers interested in Daphne du Maurier's works and in...

The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot: A New Look at Betrayer and Betrayed.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot: A New Look at Betrayer and Betrayed. Bart D. Ehrman. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]12.99. ix + 198 pages. ISBN 978-0-19-531460-3. The 'gospel' in question was discovered in Egypt in the late 1970s...

Beowulf and Other Stories: A New Introduction to Old English, Old Icelandic and Anglo-Norman Literatures.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... Beowulf and Other Stories: A New Introduction to Old English, Old Icelandic and Anglo-Norman Literatures. Richard North and Joe Allard, editors. Pearson Education Ltd. [pounds sterling]16.99 p.b. xii + 525 pages. ISBN 978-1-4058-3672-5. This...

Growing Up in a War.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... Growing Up in a War. Bryan Magee. Pimlico. [pounds sterling]20.00. viii + 390 pages. ISBN 978-1-845-95087-3. As the years roll on, first-hand accounts of the last war inevitably are by those who were children between 1939 and 1945. This account...

Justinian's Flea: Plague, Empire, and the Birth of Europe.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... Justinian's Flea: Plague, Empire and the Birth of Europe. William Rosen. Jonathan Cape. [pounds sterling]20.00. xi + 367 pages. ISBN 978-0-224-07369-1. This history, first published in the US, recalls the old adage about missing nails, shoes,...

Home Run: Escape from Nazi Europe.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... Home Run: Escape from Nazi Europe. John Nichol and Tony Rennell. Viking. [pounds sterling]20.00. xxix + 514 pages. ISBN 978-0-670-91603-0. This is the authors' third book on World War II themes and is the story, or stories, of those soldiers...

The Cambridge Companion to George Orwell.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... The Cambridge Companion to George Orwell. John Rodden, editor. Cambridge University Press. xvi + 218 pages. ISBN 978-0-521-67507-9. Anyone who lives in any of today's English-speaking countries, with their new censorship (aka 'political...

Classical Myth.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... Classical Myth. Barry P. Powell. Pearson Prentice Hall. [pounds sterling]41.99. xv + 732 pages. ISBN 978-0-13-196294-1. This is the fifth edition of a companion that was first published in 2001. Prof. Powell has used readers' suggestions to...

The Cambridge Companion to Henry Fielding.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... The Cambridge Companion to Henry Fielding. Claude Rawson, editor. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]45.00 (US$85.00). xv + 202 pages. ISBN 978-0-521-67092-0. Fielding remains not only one of the most entertaining but one of the most...

The Victorian Studies Reader.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... The Victorian Studies Reader. Kelly Boyd and Rohan McWilliam, editors. Routledge. [pounds sterling]65.00. xv + 439 pages. ISBN 978-0-415-35578-0. This new addition to Routledge's Readers in History series is an 'introduction to current debates...

Penicillin: Triumph and Tragedy.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... Penicillin: Triumph and Tragedy. Robert Bud. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]30.00. ix + 330 pages. ISBN 978-0-19-925406-4. As Mr Bud writes, penicillin is seen as 'the single most beneficial outcome of modern science'. This title is...

A History of Modern Britain.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... A History of Modern Britain. Andrew Marr. Macmillan. [pounds sterling]25.00. xxvi + 629 pages. ISBN 978-1-4050-0538-8. This is the book of the BBC television series written by the journalist-presenter. He begins in 1940 when the government...

The United States since 1980.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... The United States since 1980. Dean Baker. Cambridge U.P. [pounds sterling]30.00 (US$55.00). xiii + 274 pages. ISBN 978-0-521-67755-4. This is part of a series of histories covering the period 'since 1980'. New volumes will cover: Britain,...

Understanding Weber.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... Understanding Weber. Sam Whimster. Routledge. [pounds sterling]80.00. x + 296 pages. ISBN 978-0-415-37075-3. The author, who has written before on Weber, and who edits Max Weber Studies, here takes a closer look at Weber's writings. His...

10 Tons for Tempelhof: The Berlin Airlift.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... 10 Tons for Tempelhof: The Berlin Airlift. Bob Clarke. Tempus. [pounds sterling]17.99 p.b. 223 pages. ISBN 978-0-7524-4092-7. The Allied occupation of defeated Germany left it portioned among Britain, the US, France and the USSR. Likewise,...

The Disinherited: The Exiles Who Created Spanish Culture.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... The Disinherited: The Exiles Who Created Spanish Culture. Henry Kamen. Allen Lane. [pounds sterling]30.00. xvi + 508 pages. ISBN 978-0-713-99767-5. Prof. Kamen is well known for his mastery of Spanish history and here combines it with an...

John Newton: From Disgrace to Amazing Grace.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... John Newton: From Disgrace to Amazing Grace. Jonathan Aitken. Continuum. [pounds sterling]16.99. xx + 308 pages. ISBN 978-0-8264-9383-5. The Rev John Newton is remembered today as the author of Amazing Grace, one of the most popular hymns in...

Granta Books have recently published four new titles in the now well established 'How to Read' series.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... Granta Books have recently published four new titles in the now well established 'How to Read' series: Aquinas (ISBN 978-1-86207-914-4) by Timothy McDermott, Montaigne (ISBN 978-1-86207-944-1) by Terence Cave, Kierkegaard (ISBN...

Jane Austen's Emma: A Casebook.(Brief article)(Book review)
December 22, 2007... Jane Austen's Emma: A Casebook. Fiona Stafford, editor. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]60.00. ix + 319 pages. ISBN 978-0-19-517530-1. This collection of fourteen essays, introduced by the editor, originated with OUP New York. In that...

First and Last Loves: John Betjeman and Architecture.(Book review)
December 22, 2007... First and Last Loves: John Betjeman and Architecture. Paul Holberton and Sir John Soane's Museum. [pounds sterling]14.99p.b. 72 pages. ISBN 978-0-9549041-4-2. This interesting collection of essays, originally issued to coincide with an...