Contemporary Review articles from January 2003

Contemporary Review archives from January 2003

Terror in paradise: The Bali bombing.(Australian perspective)
January 1, 2003... The bombs that exploded in Bali on the night of October 12-13 sent debris, so to speak, all over Australia. This was the largest loss of Australian lives in one operation since World War II. Not even the Korean or Vietnam wars resulted in such...

The European Union as a template.
January 1, 2003... THE director of Le Monde Diplomatique, Ignacio Ramonet, has written: 'The fast rhythm and deep nature of the geopolitical transformations that have taken place since 1989 impresses, surprises, bewilders... We are still living with the legacy...

The marquise de Pompadour visits London.(National Gallery exhibition 'Mme de Pompadour: Images of a Mistress')
January 1, 2003... The National Gallery's exhibition, Mme de Pompadour: Images of a Mistress, is a thinner and not only thinner but shallower version of last Spring's Exhibition at Versailles, more pertinently called Mine de Pompadour et les Arts. The rustic...

Vietname: Remnants of war.
January 1, 2003... THE Vietnam war, better known to the Vietnamese as 'the American war' has, like the earlier long-drawn out struggle against French colonial rule, left deep scars on the face of a country now at peace and at ease with its former enemies....

Zionism, Israel and the Arabs.
January 1, 2003... AS a punishment for their revolt against Roman rule, the Jews of Palestine were massacred and the survivors expelled and dispersed over the Roman Empire in A.D. 132-135. They never renounced the hope of returning, and believed that the...

The repressive openness of political correctness.
January 1, 2003... One of the shibboleths of the now ageing New Left is that 'the personal is political' and so there is no distinction between private and public spheres, no area of life off-limits to political activism. I reject this world-view as totalitarian...

Germany and the town twinning movement.
January 1, 2003... Half a century after World War II, there is hardly any European city Without one or several twin towns. Yet the role of town twinning in improving international relations on a worldwide scale has been little researched or documented. What is...

Cruising to Alaska.
January 1, 2003... A serpentine queue of passengers waited more or less patiently to embark on the Ballantyne Pier in Vancouver. Behind me an elderly couple who had just flown in from Australia, were beginning visibly to wilt. Their airplane had landed at the...

Mr Hutton on the glories of Europe. .(Will Hutton, The World We're In)(Book Review)
January 1, 2003... The World We're In. Will Hutton. Little, Brown. [pounds sterling]17.99. 409 pages. ISBN 0-316-85871-4. A few years ago, Will Hutton, then a journalist and now of the Industrial Society, wrote The State We're In, an influential plea for...

The Russian soul and the revolution that failed.(Russia: Experiment with a People from 1991 to the Present; Natasha's Dream: A Cultural History of Russia)(Book Review)
January 1, 2003... Russia: Experiment with a People from 1991 to the Present. Robert Service. Macmillan. [pounds sterling]20.00. 408 pages. ISBN 0-333-72626-X. Natasha's Dream: A Cultural History of Russia. Orlando Figes. Allen Lane. [pounds sterling]25.00. 729...

Indian gods, Thugs and the Raj. .(Children of Kali)(Book Review)
January 1, 2003... Children of Kali. Kevin Rushby. Constable. [pounds sterling]16.99. 277 pages. ISBN 1-84119-393-3. Here's yet more trouble from Kali. With William Dalrymple's The Age of Kali and now Kevin Rushby's Children of Kali, there is hardly a good...

Michael Faraday, Electricity and God. .(Faraday: The Life)(Book Review)
January 1, 2003... Faraday: The Life. James Hamilton. HarperCollins. [pounds sterling]25.00. 465 pages. ISBN 0-00- 257082-3. On 3rd September 1821 Michael Faraday was at work in his basement laboratory at the Royal Institution in London's Albermarle Street....

Wesley and his churches.(Wesley and the Wesleyans: Religion in Eighteenth Century Britain; A Brand from the Burning: The Life of John Wesley)(Book Review)
January 1, 2003... Wesley and the Wesleyans: Religion in Eighteenth Century Britain. John Kent. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]37.50. 229 pages. ISBN 0-521-45555-3. A Brand from the Burning: The Life of John Wesley. Roy Hattersley. Little, Brown....

New and noteworthy.(Book Review)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... From CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS we have had, for several years, a steady succession of 'Cambridge Companions', collections of essays which reflect the latest work on leading figures in literature and 'culture'. Collections about literary...

The Complete Works of W H. Auden. Prose. Volume II.(Book Review)
January 1, 2003... The Complete Works of W H. Auden. Prose. Volume II: 1939-1948. Edward Mendelson. Faber and Faber. [pounds sterling]30.00. 556 pages. ISBN 0-571-21615-3. This volume is the fourth in Faber's Complete Works of W. H. Auden. In it are the essays,...

Death and Architecture. .(Book Review)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... Death and Architecture. James Stevens Curl. Sutton Publishing. [pounds sterling]25.00 (US$36.00). 415 pages. ISBN 0-7509-2877-8. This venerable tide has a long history. It was first published as A Celebration of Death in 1980 by Constable; a...

A Guide to the Small Museums of Britain.(Book Review)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... A Guide to the Small Museums of Britain. Christine Redington. I. B. Tauris. [pounds sterling]9.95 p.b. 285 pages. ISBN 1-86064-6239. No country has a better selection of museums than the U.K. but the sheer quantity poses a problem for visitors....

Dostoevsky: The Mantle of the Prophet 1871-1881. .(Book Review)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... The Mantle of the Prophet 1871-1881. Joseph Frank. Robson Books. [pounds sterling]29.95. 784 pages. ISBN 1-86105514-5. With this, the fifth volume, Prof. Frank's massive biography of Dosteovsky finally reaches its end. In it he looks at the...

Chambers Biographical Dictionary. .(Book Review)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... Una McGovern, editor. Chambers. o35.00. 1650 pages. ISBN 0-550-10051-2. This vital work of reference, now in its seventh edition, remains, as it has since 1897, the best one-volume dictionary of important people and passing celebrities. Yet...

The Story of Poetry. Volume II: English Poets from Skelton to Dryden. .(Book Review)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... English Poets from Skelton to Dryden. Michael Schmidt. Weidenfeld & Nicholson. [pounds sterling]25.00. 696 pages. ISBN 0-297-82938-6. This, the second in the author's projected four-volume study of English poetry, carries on the survey begun in...

The Political Economy of British Historical Experience 1688-1914.(Book Review)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... The Political Economy of British Historical Experience 1688-1914. Donald Winch and Patrick K. O'Brien, editors. Oxford University Press for The British Academy. [pounds sterling]40.00. 453 pages. ISBN 0-197262724. This collection of essays,...

Genius: A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds. .(Book Review)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds. Harold Bloom. Fourth Estate. [pounds sterling]25.00. 814 pages. ISBN 1-84115-398-2. This collection of potted biographies by Prof. Bloom, the American literary critic and writer, begins with a...

The First Christian Historian: Writing the 'Act of the Apostles'. .(Book Review)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... Writing the 'Acts of the Apostles'. Daniel Marguerat. Cambridge University Press. [pound sterling]45.00. 299 pages. ISBN 0-521-81650-5. This volume, part of the Society for New Testament Studies' Monograph Series, proceeds on the assertion that...

Essays on Contemporary Events 1936-1946. .(Book Review)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... Essays on Contemporary Events 1936-1946. Carl Gustav Jung. Routledge. [pound sterling]30.00. 109 pages. ISBN 0-415-27834-1. This volume of Jung's writings on the momentous events that occurred round him between 1936 and 1945 was first published...

Parliaments and Citizens in Western Europe. .(Book Review)
January 1, 2003... Parliaments and Citizens in Western Europe. Philip, Lord Norton, editor. Frank Cass. [pounds sterling]35.00. 198 pages. ISBN 0-7146-4387-4. This volume, the third and last in the 'Parliaments in Contemporary Western Europe' series, has nine...

Napoleon: Man of War, Man of Peace. .(Book Review)
January 1, 2003... Man of War, Man of Peace. Timothy Wilson-Smith Constable. [pounds sterling]18.99. 300 pages. ISBN 1-84119-578-2. The author, who taught the history of art at Eton, has already published a study of Napoleon's relations with artists. In this...

St Thomas Aquinas: Political Writings. .(Book Review)
January 1, 2003... Political Writings. R. W. Dyson, editor and translator. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]45.00. 312 pages. ISBN 0-5212-37569-X. The editor, also responsible for an edition of St Augustine's De Civitate Dei in this same Cambridge...

Pushkin: A Biography. .(Book Review)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... A Biography. T. J. Binyon. HarperCollins. [pounds sterling]30.00. 731 pages. ISBN 0-00-215084-0. Mr Binyon, a fellow of Wadham College, Oxford, is in no doubt that Pushkin is 'Russia's greatest poet, the composer of a large body of magnificent...

Chronicles of the Tudor Queens. .(Book Review)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... Chronicles of the Tudor Queens. David Loades, editor. Sutton Publishing. [pounds sterling]20.00 (US$29.95). 310 pages. ISBN 0-7509-2742-9. This collection of documents covers the reigns of Mary I and Elizabeth I, from 1553 to 1603. It is, in a...

Wellington's Charge: A Portrait of the Duke's England. .(Book Review)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... A Portrait of the Duke's England. Berwick Coates. Robson Books. [pounds sterling]17.95. 324 pages. ISBN 1-86105-516-1. The survey of English life in the period (1782-1851), covers the life span of the great Duke of Wellington. It naturally...

Exploring the World of the Ancient Greeks.(Book Review)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... Exploring the World of the Ancient Greeks. John Camp and Elizabeth Fisher. Thames & Hudson. [pounds sterling]17.95. 224 pages. ISBN 0-500-051127. This is another volume in this highly popular Thames and Hudson series which makes use of...

Adventures in Egypt and Nubia: The Travels of William John Bankes (1786-1855). .(Book Review)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... The Travels of William John Bankes (1786-1855). Patricia Usick. The British Museum Press. [pounds sterling]25.00. 224 pages. ISBN 0-7141-1803-6. The author of this book did a doctoral thesis on William Bankes' manuscripts and drawings in the...

Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics. .(Book Review)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics. Frederic Spotts. Hutchinson. [pounds sterling]25.00. 488 pages. ISBN 0-09-179394-7. Throughout recorded history rulers have built monuments to themselves, from the Pyramids to Saddam Hussein's crossed swords...