Contemporary Review articles from February 2005

Contemporary Review archives from February 2005

Liberators and terrorists: reflections on Yasser Arafat.
February 1, 2005... THE twentieth century has been called many things. For colonial peoples everywhere it was the Century of Liberation. It was also the century which witnessed, if not the birth, at least the coming of age of international terrorism. Both aim to...

Multiculturalism in the Netherlands and the murder of Theo van Gogh.
February 1, 2005... THE second political murder in less than three years has sent a shock wave through the Netherlands. In May 2002, the flamboyant politician Pim Fortuyn was murdered by a left-wing animal rights activist. This time, the victim was the outspoken...

Africa's information society and the culture of secrecy.
February 1, 2005... EVERYONE needs and wants to communicate, and they do so with the tools at hand. Africa's needy urban people are using the most readily available communication technology for them, mobile phones, in innovative ways. But there is still a question...

Education, Zen and the art of correspondence.
February 1, 2005... ONE of the characters in Brian Friel's play Translations, makes the following observation: 'It can happen that a civilisation can be imprisoned in a linguistic contour which no longer matches the landscape of fact.' Whatever the historical...

Pervez Musharraf: the emerging leader of the Muslim world?
February 1, 2005... PAKISTAN is the most powerful Muslim country in the world, in terms of military strength. With total active armed forces exceeding 600,000 and a reserve of more than half a million, it has one of the ten largest armed forces in the world. And...

Living with and annotating Sherlock Holmes.(The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes)(Book Review)
February 1, 2005... 'I leaned back and took down the great index volume to which he referred. Holmes balanced it on his knee and his eyes moved slowly and lovingly over the record of old cases, mixed with the accumulated information of a lifetime.' It is, of...

The two faces of tourism: Canada.(Editorial)
February 1, 2005... Editor's Note: Modern tourism is a two-way street with many countries both welcoming tourists as well as sending their own people abroad as tourists. In this first of two articles a senior Canadian travel writer reflects on this process in his...

The rise and fall of English coffee houses.
February 1, 2005... COFFEE shops are now springing up all over Britain. This is not the first time that coffee houses have been so popular. The seventeenth-century coffee house contributed to England's rise to global greatness. The first documented mention of...

Disappointment and disillusionment in Zimbabwe.(Book Review)
February 1, 2005... Where We Have Hope: A Memoir of Zimbabwe. Andrew Meldrum. John Murray. [pounds sterling]17.99. ix + 272 pages. ISBN 0-7195-6718-1. Andrew Meldrum's account of his experiences as a journalist in Zimbabwe, spanning more than twenty years from...

The creation of Labour's foreign policy 1900-1951.(Book Review)
February 1, 2005... The Labour Party and the World. Volume 1: The Evolution of Labour's Foreign Policy, 1900-51. Rhiannon Vickers. Manchester University Press. [pounds sterling]45.00. viii + 2332 pages. ISBN 0-7190-6744-8. It is interesting to note how...

Bob Dylan's songlines.(Book Review)
February 1, 2005... Chronicles, Volume One. Bob Dylan. Simon & Schuster. [pounds sterling]16.99. 293 pages. ISBN 0-7432-3076-0. Lyrics, 1962-2001. Bob Dylan. Simon & Schuster. [pounds sterling]35.00 610 pages. ISBN 0-7432-3944-X. The publication of the first...

Bram Stoker's life and times.(Book Review)
February 1, 2005... From the Shadow of Dracula: A Life of Bram Stoker. Paul Murray. Jonathan Cape. [pounds sterling]18.99. xii + 340 pages. ISBN 0-224-04462-1. In literary biography, readers tend to want so many different kinds of reading satisfaction that it...

Greg Dyke and the new media establishment.(Book Review)
February 1, 2005... Inside Story. Greg Dyke. HarperCollins. [pounds sterling]20.00. xii + 340 pages. ISBN 0-00-719233-9. The removal of Greg Dyke from the BBC was a fairly ignoble moment for all the participants in the process. The revenge of the central...

Kafka and his world.(Book Review)
February 1, 2005... Kafka. Nicholas Murray. Little, Brown. [pounds sterling]20.00. vii + 440 pages. ISBN 0-316-72479-3. Where exactly does Franz Kafka belong? This was a question which occupied this most alienated of modern masters to the point of...

Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath--a marriage examined.(Book Review)
February 1, 2005... Her Husband: Hughes and Plath--A Marriage. Diane Middlebrook. Little, Brown. [pounds sterling]20.00. xx + 361 pages. ISBN 0-316-85992-3. The story of the fiasco of the Hughes-Plath coupling is as well known as the tragic sequence of the...

Rabindranath Tagore as reformer.(Book Review)
February 1, 2005... Rabindranath Tagore: A Biography. Uma Das Gupta. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]10.99. xii + 105 pages. ISBN 0-19-566980-0. From this distance in time the eighty years of Rabindranath Tagore's life (1861-1941) are principally...

The world of paperbacks.(Bibliography)
February 1, 2005... From PHOENIX we have a wide range of new titles in biography, history, diaries and analysis. Leading the biographies is Conrad Black's massive (1280 pages) biography, Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom ([pounds sterling]17.99)....

Alexandria: City of Memory.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 1, 2005... Alexandria: City of Memory. Michael Haag. Yale University Press. [pounds sterling]25.00. xiv + 368 pages. ISBN 0-300-10415-4. In this history of Alexandria the author confines himself to the city after the end of the Second World War. He tells...

Ancient Warfare: A Very Short Introduction.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 1, 2005... Ancient Warfare: A Very Short Introduction. Harry Sidebottom. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]6.99. xxii + 165 pages. ISBN 0-19-280470-7. As study of Greek and Latin declines, it seems that interest in the history of the Ancient World...

Oppenheimer: Portrait of an Enigma.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 1, 2005... Oppenheimer: Portrait of an Enigma. Jeremy Bernstein. Duckworth. [pounds sterling]16.99. xi + 225 pages. ISBN 0-7156-3330-9. This 'profile' of the nuclear physicist most responsible for the nuclear bomb was first published in the U.S. Prof....

Impressionism: Paint and Politics.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 1, 2005... Impressionism: Paint and Politics. John House. Yale University Press. [pounds sterling]35.00. viii + 256 pages. ISBN 0-300-10240-2. In this history of French impressionism, Prof. House seeks to create a 'coherence' by drawing together all the...

On Beauty.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 1, 2005... On Beauty. Umberto Eco, editor. Alastair McEwen, translator. Secker & Warburg. [pounds sterling]30.00. 438 pages. ISBN 0-436-20517-3. This collection of extracts from various writers over the centuries is a 'review of ideas of Beauty' in which...

Our Hidden Lives: The Everyday Diaries of a Forgotten Britain 1945-1948.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 1, 2005... Our Hidden Lives: The Everyday Diaries of a Forgotten Britain 1945-1948. Simon Garfield. Ebury Press. [pounds sterling]19.99. viii + 536 pages. ISBN 0-091-89695-9. Diaries of the war years (1939-1945) have been common enough. Less common are...

History of the Poster.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 1, 2005... History of the Poster. Josef and Shizuko Muller-Brockmann. Phaidon Press. [pounds sterling]24.95 p.b. 244 pages. ISBN 0-7148-4403-9. This classic study of the poster was first published in 1971 and is here reprinted complete with the text in...

The Boys' Crusade: American G.I.s in Europe: Chaos and Fear in World War Two.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 1, 2005... The Boys' Crusade: American G.I.s in Europe: Chaos and Fear in World War Two. Paul Fussell. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. [pounds sterling]9.99. xvii + 184 pages. ISBN 0-297-64693-1. Prof. Fussell is best known for The Great War and Modern Memory, his...

Walsingham: Elizabethan Spymaster & Statesman.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 1, 2005... Walsingham: Elizabethan Spymaster & Statesman. Alan Haynes. Sutton Publishing. [pounds sterling]20.00. xiv + 274 pages. ISBN 0-7509-3122-1. This is the first biography of the one man who, second only to Lord Burghley, created the Elizabethan...

Zulu: the Heroism and Tragedy of the Zulu War of 1879.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 1, 2005... Zulu: the Heroism and Tragedy of the Zulu War of 1879. Saul David. Viking. [pounds sterling]20.00. xxiii + 467 pages. ISBN 0-670-91474-6. Queen Victoria's colonial wars have largely faded from the public memory with one exception, the war...

Fish, Flesh and Good Red Herring: A Gallimaufry.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 1, 2005... Fish, Flesh and Good Red Herring. Alice Thomas Ellis. Virago. [pounds sterling]14.99. ix + 406 pages. ISBN 1-84408-085-4. In this history of food, its preparation and consumption, the novelist surveys the nineteenth and early twentieth...

Forgotten Lunatics of the Great War.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 1, 2005... Forgotten Lunatics of the Great War. Peter Barham. Yale University Press. [pounds sterling]19.99. x + 451 pages. ISBN 0-300-10379-4. This study is concerned not just with men whose mental health was undermined or destroyed by the war (curiously...

The Spanish Inquisition: A History.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 1, 2005... The Spanish Inquisition: A History. Joseph Perez. Janet Lloyd, translator. Profile Books. [pounds sterling]16.99. vii + 248 pages. ISBN 1-86197-687-9. The author, who used to teach in the University of Bordeaux, seeks here 'to set the record...

The Frank Family that Survived: A Twentieth-Century Odyssey.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 1, 2005... The Frank Family that Survived: A Twentieth-Century Odyssey. Gordon F. Sander. Hutchinson. [pounds sterling]17.99. xxi + 298 pages. ISBN 0-09-179488-9. This moving book, which began life as a Radio Four series, is as much a family history as a...

William Pitt the Younger.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 1, 2005... William Pitt the Younger. William Hague. HarperCollins. [pounds sterling]25.00. xxv + 652 pages. ISBN 0-00-714719-8. Pitt's place in history is based on his war against revolutionary France, his reform of government finances and his role in the...

Dawn Chorus.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 1, 2005... Dawn Chorus. Joan Wyndham. Virago. [pounds sterling]16.99. iv + 233 pages. ISBN 1-84408-152-4. The author of these memoirs was born in 1921 into a branch of the Wyndham family of Petworth. Her grandparents had built an enormous Victorian pile...

Pears Cyclopaedia 2004-2005: A Book of Reference and Background Information for All the Family.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 1, 2005... Pears Cyclopaedia 2004-2005: A Book of Reference and Background Information for All the Family. Christopher Cook, editor. Penguin Books. [pounds sterling]17.99. ISBN 0-140-51547-X. For those who prefer to get their facts from the printed page,...

The Sculpture of Charles Sargeant Jagger.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 1, 2005... The Sculpture of Charles Sargeant Jagger. Ann Compton. Lund Humphries. [pounds sterling]60.00. 143 pages. ISBN 0-85331-864-6. Jagger is most famous for the Royal Artillery memorial at Hyde Park Corner and partly because of this he has not had...

The Daily Telegraph Book of Naval Obituaries.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 1, 2005... The Daily Telegraph Book of Naval Obituaries. David Twiston Davies, editor. Grub Street. [pounds sterling]17.99. 416 pages. ISBN 1-904010-91-1. This latest collection of Daily Telegraph obituaries, now considered among the best in the country,...

The Conservative Party: An Illustrated History.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 1, 2005... The Conservative Party: An Illustrated History. Anthony Seldon & Peter Snowdon. Sutton Publishing. [pounds sterling]25.00. x + 262 pages. ISBN 0-7509-3535-9. This is the first illustrated history of the Tory party for twenty-five years and the...

A Concise History of Australia.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 1, 2005... A Concise History of Australia. Stuart Macintyre. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]40.00 (US$70.00). xiv + 342 pages. ISBN 0-521-60101-0. This is a revised edition of the text first published in 1999 and seeks to explain Australian...

Thomas Hardy: A Biography Revisited.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 1, 2005... Thomas Hardy: A Biography Revisited. Michael Millgate. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]30.00. xi + 625 pages. ISBN 0-19-927565-3. It is seldom that a biographer is allowed to re-issue a book published some twenty-three years earlier....

Europe's Last Summer: Why the World Went to War in 1914.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 1, 2005... Europe's Last Summer: Why the World Went to War in 1914. David Fromkin. William Heinemann. [pounds sterling]20.00. xiii + 351 pages. ISBN 0-434-00858-3. The author, a professor in Boston University, U.S.A., seeks to explain why the Great War...

The Real Cruel Sea: The Merchant Navy in the Battle of the Atlantic 1939-1943.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 1, 2005... The Real Cruel Sea: The Merchant Navy in the Battle of the Atlantic 1939-1943. Richard Woodman. John Murray. [pounds sterling]30.00. xvii + 781 pages. ISBN 0-7195-6403-4. Mr Woodman is one of the few novelists who has made a successful...

Fighting for Christendom: Holy War and the Crusades.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 1, 2005... Fighting for Christendom: Holy War and the Crusades. Christopher Tyerman. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]12.99. xv + 247 pages. ISBN 0-19-280325-5. Few aspects of 'mediaeval history' are better known and less understood than the...

Executioner: The Chronicles of James Berry Victorian Hangman.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 1, 2005... Executioner: The Chronicles of James Berry Victorian Hangman. Stewart P. Evans. Sutton Publishing. [pounds sterling]20.00. ix + 356 pages. ISBN 0-7509-3407-7. This study of Victorian Britain's most famous hangman seeks to put the man and his...

Pevsner Architectural Guides: Bristol.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 1, 2005... Pevsner Architectural Guides: Bristol. Andrew Foyle with contributions by Bridget Cherry. Yale University Press. [pounds sterling]9.99 p.b. xii + 324 pages. ISBN 0-300-10442-1. This latest title in The Buildings of England series deals with the...

Leonardo.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 1, 2005... Leonardo. Martin Kemp. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]14.99. xviii + 286 pages. ISBN 0-19-280546-0. This short examination concentrates 'on how we can grasp the essential nature of Leonardo da Vinci, both in himself and as a...

Burma: The Forgotten War.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 1, 2005... Burma: The Forgotten War. Jon Latimer. John Murray. [pounds sterling]25.00. xiv + 610 pages. ISBN 0-7195-6575-8. The author, who has already written four books on the Second World War, here turns his attention to the campaign to drive the...

A Historical Guide to F. Scott Fitzgerald.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 1, 2005... A Historical Guide to F. Scott Fitzgerald. Kirk Curnutt, editor. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]30.00. viii + 285 pages. ISBN 0-19-515302-2. This collection of seven essays, combined with an introduction by the editor and an...

The Uncollected Henry James: Newly Discovered Stories.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 1, 2005... The Uncollected Henry James: Newly Discovered Stories. Floyd R. Horowitz, editor. Duckworth. xv + 319 pages. ISBN 0-7156-3332-5. The editor is currently completing a study of James's uncollected works and in this volume he gives readers the...

Richard Wagner: The Last of the Titans.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 1, 2005... Richard Wagner: The Last of the Titans. Joachim Kohler. Stewart Spencer, translator. Yale University Press. [pounds sterling]29.95. xiv + 688 pages. ISBN 0-300-10422-7. This massive study, first published in Cologne in 2001 as Der Letzte der...

National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 1, 2005... National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. John Oliver Hand, editor. Harry N. Abrams. [pounds sterling]35.00. xviii + 474 pages. ISBN 0-8109-5619-5. The editor has chosen some 400 'master paintings' from the 3,000 works of...

From Grub Street to Fleet Street: An Illustrated History of English Newspapers to 1899.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 1, 2005... From Grub Street to Fleet Street: An Illustrated History of English Newspapers to 1899. Bob Clarke. Ashgate. [pounds sterling]49.95. viii + 283 pages. ISBN 0-7546-5007-3. The author's introduction paints a description of Grub Street in the 17th...