Contemporary Review articles from June 2003

Contemporary Review archives from June 2003

Decommissioning Russia's obsolete nuclear submarines.
June 1, 2003... RUSSIA has at last reached a multi-billion dollar agreement with the West to make safe more than a hundred obsolete nuclear submarines of its Northern Fleet rotting abandoned in the Arctic Sea in easy access to terrorists. (See article on the...

The United States, Iraq, and international relations; part one: the backdrop to conflict.
June 1, 2003... THE war in Iraq has revealed with absolute clarity the principal foreign policy dilemma now confronting the United States. Despite--or perhaps because of--its possession of the most powerful military machine in history, and with a post-9/1 1...

The human shield movement's attempt to prevent war in Iraq.
June 1, 2003... WAR changes many things. Global politics shift, military hardware and strategies are tried and tested and new forms of protest emerge. One such protest, the human shield movement, caught the attention of the world and, although limited in...

Dithering diplomacy: the Dutch and the Iraqi crisis.
June 1, 2003... THE war in Iraq has created an almost unbridgeable gap between the world's most important allies - the United States and Europe. The European Union is hopelessly divided with Britain firmly on the side of the US, whilst Germany and France have...

Freedom of religion in America.
June 1, 2003... THE explanation we give to the origins and purpose of life is liable to be one of the most important judgements (or series of judgements) we are ever likely to make. On a surface level, our willingness or reluctance to endorse a particular...

Dancing on tables in Singapore's guided democracy.
June 1, 2003... Editor's Note: When the panic about the SARS virus swept through Asia, Singapore took swift and drastic preventative measures. This response follows the tradition of the country's 'Guided Democracy' as shown in this article. DANCING on...

Pictures from Dresden at the Royal Academy.
June 1, 2003... LAST autumn part of the Gemaldegalerie in Dresden was flooded, leaving a shortage of space for display. Since the Royal Academy, London, has taken fifty pictures deemed temporarily disposable into its protection, with all expenses paid for...

Flashman and the Victorian social conscience.
June 1, 2003... THE series of Flashman novels by George MacDonald Fraser which began to appear in the late 1960s had as their inspiration the brilliantly ingenious idea of updating the life history of the disgraced bully of Thomas Hughes novel Torn Brown's...

The women of September the 11th. (Reviews).(The Wotnen's War: Voices from September 11)(Book Review)
June 1, 2003... The Wotnen's War: Voices from September 11. Christopher Hilton. Sutton Publishing. [pounds sterling]17.99. 230 pages. ISBN 0-7509-3021-7. It has been suggested that whilst the bad deeds of the world are normally caused by men, it is the...

Has the past got any future? (Reviews).(The Future of the Past: How the Information Age Threatens to Destroy our Cultural Heritage)(Book Review)
June 1, 2003... The Future of the Past: How the Information Age Threatens to Destroy our Cultural Heritage. Alexander Stille. Picardor. [pounds sterling]15.99. 341 pages. ISBN 0-330-37534-2. In this substantial collection of essays, Alexander Stille is...

Hobsbawm on Hobsbawm. (Reviews).(Interesting Times: A Twentieth-Century Life)(Book Review)
June 1, 2003... Interesting Times: A Twentieth-Century Life. Eric Hobsbawm. Allen Lane: The Penguin Press. [pound sterling]20.00. 448 pages. ISBN 0-713-99581-5. Eric Hobsbawm is one of Britain's outstanding historians. His life has spanned and touched...

A masterly account of Alamein. (Reviews).(Alamein; War Without Hate)(Book Review)
June 1, 2003... Alamein; War Without Hate. John Bierman and Colin Smith. Viking. [pounds sterling]20.00. 478 pages. ISBN 0-670-91109-7. The title of this book is inadequate. There are five parts divided into thirty chapters. Only part five (six chapters)...

George Lansbury and the origins of old labour. (Reviews).(Book Review)
June 1, 2003... George Lansbury: At the Heart of Old Labour. John Shepherd. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]35.00. 407 pages. ISBN 0-19-820164-8. In the history of the British Labour Movement, there has always been a slight difference between...

New and noteworthy.
June 1, 2003... One of the more interesting aspects of modem English life is the degree to which history remains a favourite topic for television whether in series presented by tele-dons (as mentioned above) or in dramatisation, as in Stephen Poliakoff's The...

The world of paperbacks.(Bibliography)
June 1, 2003... We begin this month's survey of new titles with two from OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS which bear a close resemblance to the old comedy team of Little and Large. The first is Prof. Michael Howard's The First World War ([pounds sterling]8.99) Its 154...

The Cambridge History of Early Modern English Literature. (Reviews).(Book Review)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... The Cambridge History of Early Modern English Literature. David Loewenstein and Janel Mueller, editors. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]100.00 (US$140.00). 1038 pages. ISBN 0-521-63156-4. This latest volume in the history of...

Labour Forces from Ernest Bevin to Gordon Brown. (Reviews).(Book Review)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... Labour Forces from Ernest Bevin to Gordon Brown. Kevin Jeffreys, editor. I. B. Tauris. [pounds sterling]25.00. 258 pages. ISBN 1-86064-743-X. The aim of this collection of biographical essays is to give readers 'fresh and accessible...

The Enlightenment: A Sourcebook and Reader. (Reviews).(Book Review)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... The Enlightenment: A Sourcebook and Reader. Paul Hyland with Olga Gomez and Francesca Greensides, editors. Routledge. [pounds sterling]60.00. 467 pages. ISBN 0-415-20448-8. The 'enlightenment' is an historian's shorthand for the changing...

Romanticism, publishing and Dissent: Joseph Johnson and the Cause of Liberty. (Reviews).(Book Review)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... Romanticism, Publishing and Dissent: Joseph Johnson and the Cause of Liberty. Helen Braithwaite. Palgrave Macmillan. [pounds sterling]45.00. 243 pages. ISBN 0-333-98394-7. In the history of ideas, one may say that writers are only as good as...

The Hitler/Hess Deception: British Intelligence's Best-Kept Secret of the second World War. (Reviews).(Book Review)
June 1, 2003... The Hitler/Hess Deception: British Intelligence's Best-Kept Secret of the Second World War. Martin Allen. Harper Collins. [pounds sterling]19.99. 324 pages. ISBN 0-00714118-1. In May 1941, Hitler's Deputy, Rudolf Hess, flew an aeroplane to...

Questions of identity: A Selection from the Pages of New European. (Reviews).(Book Review)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... Questions of Identity: A Selection from the Pages of New European. Christopher Joyce, editor. I. B. Tauris. [pounds sterling]14.95 p.b. 244 pages. ISBN 1-86064-696-4. The recent disagreements within the European Union over how to cope with Iraq...

Craze: Gin and Debauchery in an Age of Reason. (Reviews).(Book Review)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... Craze: Gin and Debauchery in an Age of Reason. Jessica Warner. Profile Books. [pounds sterling]15.00. 267 pages. ISBN 1-86197-670-4. This title, first published in the U.S. last year, investigates the history of the 'gin craze' that occurred in...

Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The Creation of the Mods and Rockers. (Reviews).(Book Review)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The Creation of the Mods and Rockers. Stanley Cohen. Routledge. [pounds]45.00. 201 pages. ISBN 0-415-26712-9. This is a third edition of a title that first appeared in 1972 and the author has written a new...

The First Scientist: A Life of Roger Bacon. (Reviews).(Book Review)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... The First Scientist: A Life of Roger Bacon. Brian Clegg. Constable. [pounds sterling]14.99. 244 pages. ISBN 1-84119-618-5. This is the first book to put Bacon's life 'into perspective in a generally accessible work' since 1952. The thirteenth...

In Search of Shangri-La: The Extraordinary True Story of the Quest for the Lost Horizon. (Reviews).(Book Review)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... In Search of Shangri-La: The Extraordinary True Story of the Quest for the Lost Horizon. Michael McRae. Michael Joseph. [pounds sterling]16.99. 229 pages. ISBN 0-71814430-9. As the author points out in his introduction, the nineteenth century...

The Ascent of Woman: A History of the Suffragette Movement and the Ideas Behind It. (Reviews).(Book Review)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... The Ascent of Woman: A History of the Suffragette Movement and the Ideas Behind It. Melanie Phillips. Little, Brown. [pounds sterling]18.99. 370 pages. ISBN 0-316-72533-1. This is not a new history of the suffragette movement so much as a new...

Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII. (Reviews).(Book Review)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII. David Starkey. Chatto & Windus. [pounds sterling]25.00. 384 pages. ISBN 0-7011-7298-3. If Henry VIII did nothing else by having six wives he did at least leave a rich vein for books by successive historians...

Rome the Cosmopolis. (Reviews).(Book Review)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... Rome the Cosmopolis. Catherine Edwards and Greg Woolf, editors. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]45.00 (US$60.00). 249 pages. ISBN 0-521-80005-6. This collection of ten essays is concerned with Rome as a 'world city', the centre of...

Weapons of Mass Destruction: The No-Nonsense Guide to Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Weapons Today. (Reviews).(Book Review)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... Weapons of Mass Destruction: The No-Nonsense Guide to Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Weapons Today. Robert Hutchinson. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. [pounds sterling]18.99. 283 pages. ISBN 0-297-83091-0. In the wake of the Allied invasion of Iraq to...

Fifteen into One? The European Union and Its Member States. (Reviews).(Book Review)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... Fifteen into One? The European Union and Its Member States. Wolfgang Wessels, Andreas Maurer and Jurgen Mittag, editors. Manchester University Press. [pounds sterling]17.99 p.b. 472 pages. ISBN 0-7190-5849-X. This collection of eighteen essays,...

Mitford's Japan: Memories and Recollections 1866-1906. (Reviews).(Book Review)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... Mitford's Japan: Memories and Recollections 1866-1906. Hugh Cortazzi, editor. Japan Library (Taylor and Francis). [pounds sterling]16.99 p.b. 307 pages. ISBN 1-903350-07-7. This is a revised version of the volume first published in 1985 by the...

Cold War Britain, 1945-1964: New Perspectives. (Reviews).(Book Review)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... Cold War Britain, 1945-1964: New Perspectives. Michael F. Hopkins, Michael D. Kandiah and Gillian Staerck, editors. Palgrave Macmillan. [pounds sterling]47.50. 244 pages. ISBN 1-4039-0121-X. The essays in this collection began life as papers...