Contemporary Review articles from January 2004

Contemporary Review archives from January 2004

The draft European constitution.
January 1, 2004... THE European Union (EU) has been one of the most successful creations in the history of political institutions. For the past half-century, harmonization of the policies of many European countries has helped make war in Western Europe...

Islam: facing two ways with Dr Mahathir.
January 1, 2004... PART I AS Dr Mahathir Mohamed of Malaysia was preparing to hand over the premiership to his 'annointed successor', Abdullah Badawi, in the course of 2003--an event fixed with quaint precision for 31st October, as if to pre-empt...

Otto von Habsburg and the future of Europe.
January 1, 2004... THE public profile of Otto von Habsburg has risen high in recent years. Since 1989 he has been seen, quite rightly, as one of the prime movers in the issues of a liberated Eastern Europe. This is not surprising in one sense, as he was born an...

Cartagena and the North-South divide over GMOs.(Cartagena Protocol on Bio-Safety regulations on genetically modified organisms)
January 1, 2004... AS THE world's attention was focussed firmly on the Cancun World Trade Organisation summit last September 2003, an important international agreement quietly made its entry on the world stage, holding out immense implications for developing...

Viscountess Eccles: an Anglo-American patroness of literature.
January 1, 2004... MARY, Viscountess Eccles shared Dr Johnson's opinion that to be tired of London was to be tired of life. Each summer she would leave her home in New Jersey, and decamp to London. She would travel around the city, and elsewhere in the UK,...

Gyorgy Faludy: the passions of Hungary's controversial poet.(Critical Essay)
January 1, 2004... LOOKING ACROSS the vast river from Gyorgy Faludy's balcony in old Pest, a distraught young woman scowls into the setting sun beyond the dramatic Buda hills. To the left, a reflection of the eclectic House of Parliament shimmers in the Danube....

The music of the Polish diaspora.
January 1, 2004... IT was the night of the assassination of Itzakh Rabin, the Prime Minister of Israel. I recall the occasion on 4 November 1995 in much the same way as one recalls the assassination of President Kennedy: I know what I was doing at the time. I was...

A celebration at the Hayward Gallery: a century of rescued art.
January 1, 2004... UNDER the dramatic title of Saved! the National Art Collections Fund has mounted an exhibition, impressive even in the drab purlieus of the Hayward Gallery, of some of the most notable works it has helped to retain in Great Britain during the...

Israel and Palestine--two views.(Israel and Palestine: Why they fight and Can They Stop?)(Arafat: The Biography)(Book Review)
January 1, 2004... Israel and Palestine: Why they fight and Can They Stop? Bernard Wasserstein. Profile Books. [pounds sterling]9.99. 224 pages. ISBN 1-86197-534-1. Arafat: The Biography. Tony Walker and Andrew Gowers. Virgin Books. [pounds sterling]25.00. 490...

A political vision for Japan.(Japan: A State Strategy for the Twenty-First Century)(Book Review)
January 1, 2004... Japan: A State Strategy for the Twenty-First Century. Yasuhiro Nakasone. Routledge. [pounds sterling]25.00. 234 pages. ISBN 0-7007-1635-5. Yasuhiro Nakasone (b. 1917) served an exceptionally lengthy term as a reforming Liberal Democratic...

Spinning for Tony--Mr. Blair's manipulators.(The Wages of Spin)(Book Review)
January 1, 2004... The Wages of Spin. Bernard Ingham. John Murray. [pounds sterling]18.99. 261 pages. ISBN 0-7195-6481-6. Sir Bernard Ingham served as a Government information officer for twenty-four years, almost half of that time as chief press secretary...

The crusades revisited.(The Experience of Crusading. Volume One: Western Approaches)(The Experience of Crusading. Volume Two: Defining the Crusader Kingdom)(The Christian World of the Middle Ages)(Book Review)
January 1, 2004... The Experience of Crusading. Volume One: Western Approaches. Marcus Bull and Norman Housley, editors. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]45.00 (US$60.00). 307 pages. ISBN 0-521-81168-6. The Experience of Crusading. Volume Two:...

The case for closing Sellafield.(Fearing Sellafield: What It Is And Why the Irish Want It Shut)(Book Review)
January 1, 2004... Fearing Sellafield: What It Is And Why the Irish Want It Shut. Colum Kenny. Gill & Macmillan. [pounds sterling]9.99. 274 pages. ISBN 0-7171-3583-7. This is the first comprehensive book in non-technical language on Sellafield as a...

The poetry of R.S. Thomas.(R. S. Thomas: Identity, Environment, and Deity)(Book Review)
January 1, 2004... R. S. Thomas: Identity, Environment, and Deity. Christopher Morgan. Manchester University Press. [pounds sterling]40.00. 209 pages. ISBN 0-7190-6248-9. On the occasion of R. S. Thomas's death in September 2000, the then Archbishop of Wales...

Sudan and the plight of Liberal English Ladies.(Emma's War: Love and Death in Sudan's War)(Book Review)
January 1, 2004... Emma's War: Love and Death in Sudan's War. Deborah Scroggins. HarperCollins. [pounds sterling]17.99. 220 pages. ISBN 0-00-257027-0. The Sudan is one of the few havens from the white world--rather appropriately, given that soudan is the...

A new life of Anthony Eden.(Eden: The Life and Times of Anthony Eden, First Earl of Avon, 1897-1977)(Book Review)
January 1, 2004... Eden: The Life and Times of Anthony Eden, First Earl of Avon, 1897-1977. D. R. Thorpe. Chatto and Windus. [pounds sterling]25.00. 758 pages. ISBN 0-701-16744-0. Anthony Eden was certainly the handsomest British Prime Minister of the...

The world of paperbacks.
January 1, 2004... New titles from PIMLICO are dominated by biographies led by Janet Browne's Charles Darwin: Voyaging and Charles Darwin: The Power of Place ([pounds sterling]12.99 each). These were highly praised on publication and give us portraits of both the...

Rebel Daughters: Ireland in Conflict 1798.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
January 1, 2004... Rebel Daughters: Ireland in Conflict 1798. Janet Todd. Viking. [pounds sterling]20.00. 400 pages. ISBN 0-670-91116-X. The role of the great Anglo-Irish families has over the years attracted both academic interest and popular fascination. Among...

The Birth of Sidney.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
January 1, 2004... The Birth of Sidney. Tim Flannery, editor. William Heinemann. [pounds sterling]20.00. 349 pages. ISBN 0-434-00876-1. This collection of first-hand accounts of the settling of Sydney was first published in Australia in 1999. The editor's aim was...

The House of Novello: Practice and Policy of a Victorian Music Publisher, 1829-1866.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
January 1, 2004... The House of Novello: Practice and Policy of a Victorian Music Publisher, 1829-1866. Victoria L. Cooper. Ashgate. [pounds sterling]45.00. 220 pages. ISBN 0-7546-0088-2. The author, who is Commissioning Editor for Opera and Theatre Studies at...

Pears Cyclopaedia 2003-2004: A Book of Reference and Background Information for All the Family.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
January 1, 2004... Pears Cyclopaedia 2003-2004: A Book of Reference and Background Information for All the Family. Chris Cook, editor. Penguin Books. [pounds sterling]16.99. This, the 112th edition of the famous Cyclopaedia, continues the high standard which...

Mud, Blood and Poppycock: Britain and the First World War.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
January 1, 2004... Mud, Blood and Poppycock: Britain and the First World War. Gordon Corrigan, MBE. Cassell. [pounds sterling]18.99. 431 pages. ISBN 0-304-35955-6. The author, himself a retired soldier, sets out to show how false is the stereotypical view of the...

Words to Outlive Us: Eyewitness Accounts from the Warsaw Ghetto.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
January 1, 2004... Words to Outlive Us: Eyewitness Accounts from the Warsaw Ghetto. Michal Grynberg, editor. Philip Boehm, translator. Granta Books. [pounds sterling]20.00. 493 pages. ISBN 1-86207-623-5. This moving book, assembled by the Polish historian, Michal...

Courtesans.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
January 1, 2004... Courtesans. Katie Hickman. Harper-Collins. [pounds sterling]20.00. 363 pages. ISBN 0-00-711391-9. The author sees courtesans as 'ghosts of society' who inhabited the demi-monde in ambiguity. The courtesan was neither a prostitute nor a mistress...

Culture Wars: Secular-Catholic Conflict in Nineteenth-Century Europe.(Book Review)
January 1, 2004... Culture Wars: Secular-Catholic Conflict in Nineteenth-Century Europe. Christopher Clark and Wolfram Kaiser. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]50.00 and US$70.00. 368 pages. ISBN 0-521-80997-5. The conflict between the surviving...

Poverty in Britain, 1900-1965.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
January 1, 2004... Poverty in Britain, 1900-1965. Ian Gazeley. Palgrave Macmillan. [pounds sterling]49.50. 239 pages. ISBN 0-333-71619-1. The author begins his study with Rowntree's famous Poverty: A Study of Town Life published in 1901. The difficulty, he...

Pick Up Your Parrots and Monkeys and Fall in Facing the Boat. J. W. Pennington, M. C. Cassell.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
January 1, 2004... Pick Up Your Parrots and Monkeys and Fall in Facing the Boat. J. W. Pennington, M. C. Cassell. [pounds sterling]16.99. The author, who was born in Salford in 1920, enlisted in the Royal Horse Artillery when only fourteen and within a year saw...

The Decline of Christendom in Western Europe, 1750-2000.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
January 1, 2004... The Decline of Christendom in Western Europe, 1750-2000. Hugh McLeod and Werner Ustorf, editors. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]40.00 (US$60.00). 234 pages. ISBN 0-521-81493-6. The essays in this collection are based on papers...

The Lander and German Federalism.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
January 1, 2004... The Lander and German Federalism. Arthur B. Gunlicks. Manchester University Press. [pounds sterling]55.00. 409 pages. ISBN 0-7190-6532-1. The publication of this study is most timely because talk of federalism is in the air, among Labour...

An Underworld at War: Spivs, Deserters, Racketeers and Civilians in the Second World War.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
January 1, 2004... An Underworld at War: Spivs, Deserters, Racketeers and Civilians in the Second World War. Donald Thomas. John Murray. [pounds sterling]20.00. 429 pages. ISBN 0-7195-5732-1. This is a carefully worded study, amusing and distressing in parts, but...

A Victorian Wanderer: The Life of Thomas Arnold the Younger.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
January 1, 2004... A Victorian Wanderer: The Life of Thomas Arnold the Younger. Bernard Bergonzi. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]25.00. 274 pages. ISBN 0-19-925741-8. If any one family conjures up the early Victorian liberal intellectual it is that of...

The Cultural Devolution: Art in Britain in the Late Twentieth Century.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
January 1, 2004... The Cultural Devolution: Art in Britain in the Late Twentieth Century. Neil Mulholland. Ashgate. [pounds sterling]49.95. 220 pages. ISBN 0-7546-0392-X. This study concentrates on 'the indeterminate relationships between institutions and...

The Forgotten French: Exiles in the British Isles, 1940-44.(Book Review)
January 1, 2004... The Forgotten French: Exiles in the British Isles, 1940-44. Nicholas Atkin. Manchester University Press. [pounds sterling]45.00. 304 pages. ISBN 0-7190-6438-4. The author is keen to point out that this study is not about de Gaulle, the Free...

Lincoln. Richard J. Carwardine. Longman.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
January 1, 2004... Lincoln. Richard J. Carwardine. Longman. [pounds sterling]16.99 p.b. 352 pages. ISBN 0-582-03279-2. This latest volume in Longman's Profiles in Power series is by the Rhodes Professor of American History in the University of Oxford. Prof....

Comrades: The Rise and Fall of World Communism.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
January 1, 2004... Comrades: The Rise and Fall of World Communism. Robert Harvey. John Murray. [pounds sterling]25.00. 422 pages. ISBN 0-7195-6147-7. In this fast moving and well written survey the former MP turns his attention to the greatest evil the world has...

The Confinement of the Insane: International Perspectives, 1800-1965.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
January 1, 2004... The Confinement of the Insane: International Perspectives, 1800-1965. Roy Porter and David Wright, editors. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]50.00 and US$70.00. 371 pages. ISBN 0-521-80206-7. This collection of fourteen essays, by...