Contemporary Review articles from January 2002

Contemporary Review archives from January 2002

Faith, Fanaticism and food in Islam.
January 1, 2002... IN the present world crisis, which even some moderates on either side see as a 'clash of civilizations', we are often called upon to 'understand Islam'. Usually these calls, from Christian as well as Muslim sources, aim to have us realize that...

Ethnic Groups and National Unity in Afghanistan.
January 1, 2002... KARL von Clausewitz wrote that war is nothing but the pursuit of politics by other means. The war in Afghanistan could be characterized as concerted efforts by ethnic communities to jockey for power in the post-Soviet era. One of the chief...

Australia: Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail.
January 1, 2002... AUSTRALIA'S conservative Prime Minister, John Howard, won a remarkable election victory on 10 November 2001, with a swing to his government of about two per cent. This is the greatest swing to a sitting government since 1966 and puts him on...

Parkbenchers.(Poem)
January 1, 2002... Parkbenchers We are the closed accounts, The guests you don't announce, The worked-out mines, The discontinued lines. We are the seized-up locks, The stopped clocks, The crumbling beams, The frazzled seams. We are the...

Belarus under Lukashenko.(Alexander Lukashenko)
January 1, 2002... THE Republic of Belarus is a small country of just over ten million people at the crossroads between Russia and Europe that emerged on the rubbles of the collapsed Soviet Union. It is distinguished by the striking difference between the two...

Durham Cathedral.(Poem)
January 1, 2002... DURHAM CATHEDRAL I Tall walls rising before the evenfall of the first millennium, cursed by time, losing substance in the ooze of crumble, converting to an earlier state, renewed, restored at ground and altitude. II ...

Lord Longford: A Crusading Peer.
January 1, 2002... Editor's Note: It is somewhat ironic that the two British politicians whose deaths received the widest and most sympathetic coverage last year were hereditary peers. At a time when the Blair Government is anxious to destroy all the political...

War Leaves a Shadow of Hunger over Eritrea.
January 1, 2002... Two years after the end of a crippling war with its neighbour Ethiopia, the East African nation of Eritrea is faced with a grim food situation in a reminder of the way conflicts can destroy dreams of development. Although armed conflict ended...

Amy Levy: A tragic Victorian Novelist.
January 1, 2002... SHE died in an upstairs bedroom, by the light of the morning star, that shone over Endsleigh Gardens, and not over Leamington Spa. She died inhaling death deeply and willingly: carbon monoxide from the charcoal that she burnt in the sealed...

A letter from Auschwitz to my Daughters.(Brief Article)(Column)
January 1, 2002... TODAY, when you were at school, I drove across Silesia to a small town near Krakow. In Polish it is called Oswiecim. In all the other languages of the world it is called Auschwitz. You will learn of the things that happened here. For the...

'Europe' and the Electorate. (Reviews).
January 1, 2002... Europeanised Politics? European Integration and National Political Systems. Klaus H. Goetz and Simon Hix, editors. Frank Cass. [pounds sterling]16.50 p.b. 248 pages. ISBN 0-146-8166-0. The timing for publication of a book on the influence...

Belief without God. (Reviews).
January 1, 2002... An Intelligent Person's Guide to Atheism. Daniel Harbour. Duckworth. [pounds sterling]14.95. 150 pages. ISBN 0-7156-2915-8. The publishers found a rabbi who thinks that Daniel Harbour is 'an intellectual steamroller', combining erudition...

Reforming Victorian Prisons Down Under. (Reviews).(Maconochie's Experiment)
January 1, 2002... Maconochie's Experiment. John Clay. John Murray. [pounds sterling]17.99. 268 pages. ISBN 0-7195-6045-4. Andrew Maconochie was an unusual man with ideas ahead of his time. A naval captain on half pay following the Napoleonic wars he jumped...

The Dylan Thomas Confessional. (Reviews).(Dylan Thomas: The Collected Letters)
January 1, 2002... Dylan Thomas: The Collected Letters. New Edition. Paul Ferris, editor. Dent. [pounds sterling]50.00. 1062 pages. ISBN 0460-87999-5. From his earliest years the sound of words was Dylan Thomas' music. The building of them into sentences, the...

'Through a Mirror' -- Stoppard and Pinter. (Reviews).(The Cambridge Companion to Tom Stoppard)
January 1, 2002... The Cambridge Companion to Tom Stoppard. Katherine E. Kelly, editor. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]37.50 (US$54.95). 244 pages. ISBN 0-521-64178-0 and The Cambridge Companion to Harold Pinter. Peter Raby, editor. Cambridge...

George Steiner's Passionate Reason. (Reviews).(Grammars of Creation)
January 1, 2002... Grammars of Creation. George Steiner. Faber. [pounds sterling]16.99. ISBN 0-571-20681-6. Creation speaks to the future, to the unborn. The primary Creation, according to Genesis, was voiced into being. When God spoke something --...

Manet: The Still-Life Paintings. (Reviews).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... Manet: The Still-Life Paintings. George Mauner. Harry N. Abrams. [pounds sterling]27.00. 198 pages. ISBN 0-8109-4391-3. This informative and well researched study is, like Manet's own still-life paintings, executed with a lightness of touch...

Daydream Believer: Confessions of a Hero-Worshipper. (Reviews).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... Daydream Believer: Confessions of a Hero-Worshipper, Hugh Massingberd. Macmillan. [pounds sterling]16.99. 310 pages. ISBN 0-333-69287-X. This author is best known for making obituaries into a minor art form in The Daily Telegraph. Several...

Paris Between Empires: 1814-1852. (Reviews).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... Paris Between Empires: 1814-1852. Philip Mansel. John Murray. [pounds sterling]25.00. 559 pages. ISBN 0-7195-5627-9. This deeply researched and elegantly written work covers a fascinating period in French history, from the fall of the first...

On Immigration and Refugees. (Reviews).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... On Immigration and Refugees. Michael Dummett. Routledge, [pounds sterling]30.00. 160 pages. ISBN 0-415-22707-0. The crisis over so-called 'asylum seekers', the hordes of illegal immigrants trying to get into Britain and western Europe and the...

Britain's Colonial Wars 1688-1783. (Reviews).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... Britain's Colonial Wars 1688-1783. Bruce Lenman. Longman. [pounds sterling]16.99 p.b. 284 pages. ISBN 0-582-42401-1. In this study, part of Longman's Modern Wars in Perspective series, the author argues that most colonial wars between 1689 and...

Work and Employment in a Globalized Era: An Asia Pacific Focus.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... Work and Employment in a Globalized Era: An Asia Pacific Focus. Yaw A. Debrah and Ian G. Smith, editors. Frank Cass. [pounds sterling]42.50 (US$59.50). 264 pages. ISBN 0-7146-8162-8. This collection of essays, which originated at the fourteenth...

Painted Shadow: A Life of Vivienne Eliot.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... Painted Shadow: A Life of Vivienne Eliot. Carole Seymour-Jones. Constable. [pounds sterling]20.00. 682 pages. ISBN 0-09-479270-4. T. S. Eliot's first wife, Vivienne, is one of those women famous because she married a man who became famous. For...

Collected Shorter Fiction of Joseph Roth.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... Collected Shorter Fiction of Joseph Roth. Michael Hofmann, translator. Granta Books. [pounds sterling]15.99. 291 pages. ISBN 1-86207-447-X. Joseph Roth's reputation continues to grow with each new title published by Granta and the latest will...

Outlaws and Highwaymen: The Cult of the Robber in England from the Middle Ages to the Nineteenth Century.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... Outlaws and Highwaymen: The Cult of the Robber in England from the Middle Ages to the Nineteenth Century. Gillian Spraggs. Pimlico. [pounds sterling]12.50 p.b. 372 pages. ISBN 0-7126-6479-3. This scholarly study of the cult of gentlemen outlaws...

Interrogations: The Nazi Elite in Allied Hands, 1945.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... Interrogations: The Nazi Elite in Allied Hands, 194S. Richard Overy. Allen Lane: The Penguin Press. [pounds sterling]25.00. 650 pages. ISBN 0-713-90093-502. In what amounts to an extended introduction, the author examines what he calls the...

Wittgenstein: Biography and Philosophy.
January 1, 2002... Wittgenstein: Biography and Philosophy. James C. Klagge, editor. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]37.50 (US$54.95). 272 pages. ISBN 0-521-00868-9. This collection of nine essays investigates various aspects of Ludwig Wittgenstein's...

Rethinking Theory and History in the Cold War: The State, Military Power and Social Revolution.
January 1, 2002... Rethinking Theory and History in the Cold War: The State, Military power and Social Revolution. Richard Saull. Frank Cass. [pounds sterling]45.00 (US$59.50). 238 pages. ISBN 0-87146-5189-3. The collapse of the Soviet Empire has produced large...

The Decline and Fall of the Roman City.
January 1, 2002... The Decline and Fall of the Roman City. J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]70.00. 479 pages. ISBN 0-19-815247-7. This study is about the 'transformation of cities and life in cities during what is sometimes...

International Migration: Trends, Policies and Economic Impact.
January 1, 2002... International Migration: Trends, Policies and Economic Impact. Slobodan Djajic. Routledge. [pounds sterling]65.00. 273 pages. ISBN 0-415-23782-3. The continuing debate in Britain about what to do with illegal immigrants makes this a timely...

Catholics: Britain's Largest Minority.
January 1, 2002... Catholics: Britain's Largest Minority. Dennis Sewell. Viking. [pounds sterling]20.00. 276 pages. ISBN 0-670-883321-X. This survey of such a large group as Britain's Roman Catholics is instructive and somewhat idiosyncratic. There is, for...

Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse 1970-2000.
January 1, 2002... Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse 1970-2000. Stephen Kotkin. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]16.99 (US$25.00). 245 pages. ISBN 0-19-280245-3. This short study is concerned with the end of the Soviet Union and is not so much...

The Politics of Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa: Legitimizing the Post Apartheid State.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... The Politics of Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa: Legitimizing the Post Apartheid State. Richard A. Wilson. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]45.00 (US$64.95). 271 pages. ISBN 0-521-80219-9. This book examines the...

Before the Flood: Understanding the Biblical Flood Story as Recalling a Real-Life Event.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... Before the Flood: Understanding the Biblical Flood Story as Recalling a Real-Life Event. Ian Wilson. Orion Books. [pounds sterling]18.99. 336 pages. ISBN 0-75284-635-3. The story of God's destruction of the world and of the survival of a...

War, Peace and World Orders in European History.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... War, Peace and World Orders in European History. Anja V. Hartmann and Beatrice Heuser, editors. Routledge. [pounds sterling]65.00. 267 pages. ISBN 0-415-24440-4. This volume, part of Routledge's New International Relations series, contains...

Epitaph for an Auctioneer.(Poem)
January 1, 2002... Rpitaph for an auctioneer God, Gave him the nod, And the bidding of the Lord Cannot be ignored.