Contemporary Review articles from June 2005

Contemporary Review archives from June 2005

A 2005 general election Labour campaign diary.
June 1, 2005... AT the last general election in 2001, Solihull, a pleasant West Midland town situated in the geographical centre of the country, eight miles from Birmingham, had a Conservative majority of about 9,500. It was a true blue area. The Liberal...

Chechnya: the Achilles heel of Russia--Part three.
June 1, 2005... Editor's Note: In last month's issue Dr Alec Rasizade analysed the Chechen wars of 1994 and 1999. In this final part he reflects on the loss of Maskhadov, the new radical leaders of the resistance and the future of the region. Chechen...

Riots and remembrance: rising tensions between China and Japan.
June 1, 2005... THREE busloads of paramilitary troops were guarding the Japanese Embassy in Beijing in April after thousands of demonstrators threw bottles, stones and eggs at the building in the biggest street protests against Japan since relations between...

Google and access to the world's intellectual heritage.(Eighteenth Century Collections Online)
June 1, 2005... I was recently researching the educational views of Vicesimus Knox (1752-1821), headmaster of Tonbridge School, Kent, for thirty-four years. My knowledge of Knox was relatively scant though I knew that his views on liberal education and on the...

John Hewitt: a poet of the Antrim Glens.(Biography)
June 1, 2005... JOHN HEWITT was a poet who took considerable solace and satisfaction from the Glens of Antrim in Northern Ireland. The beauty and serenity of this impressive landscape stirred his imagination and inspired him to produce many collections of...

Vietnam: yesterday, today and tomorrow.
June 1, 2005... IN March 2005 I returned to Vietnam for the first time since I was there doing research for a doctorate during the war in South Vietnam in 1974. The purpose of this article is to recall the country's history, to look at the state of Vietnam...

Art notes: new Carracci at the National Gallery.(Annibale Carracci, Holy Family painting)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2005... The National Gallery should be congratulated on its acquisition of Annibale Carracci's Holy Family, painted on copper for Cardinal Alessandro Montalto in about 1600, and later lost for many years before reappearing at a London auction in the...

The Croglin vampire.(Croglin Grange)
June 1, 2005... IT was the inimitable and irrepressible Augustus Hare (1834-1903) intrepid Victorian Euro-trotter and aristo-hunting prototype of the late James Lees-Milne, who brought us, in the fourth volume of his six-decker autobiography, The Story of My...

Out in the cold again: the woods of northern Minnesota.
June 1, 2005... A couple of years ago I went on an expedition to the North Pole. We skied over the sea ice, bridged the leads and clambered over the sastrugi, and my arrogance and incompetence lost me a finger-end to frostbite. When we got to the Pole we...

The crisis in France's welfare state.(France in Crisis: Welfare, Inequality and Globalization since 1980)(Book Review)
June 1, 2005... France in Crisis: Welfare, Inequality and Globalization since 1980. Timothy B. Smith. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]40.00 (US$65.00). xi + 296 pages. ISBN 0-521-84414-2. Among the rich Western nations, France has the poorest...

Gordon brown under the hatchet.(Gordon Brown)(Book Review)
June 1, 2005... Gordon Brown. Tom Bower. HarperCollins. [pounds sterling]20.00. xix + 492 pages. ISBN 0-00-717540-X. Gordon Brown is clearly not a simple character to come to grips with, either as a politician or as a private individual. The somewhat...

The media, politics and modern democracy.(What the Media Are Doing to Our Politics)(Book Review)
June 1, 2005... What the Media Are Doing to Our Politics. John Lloyd. Constable. [pounds sterling]12.99. vi + 218 pages. ISBN 1-84119-900-1. 'The real question is, What kind of people are we?' This question is not John Lloyd's, but Mort Rosenblum's. It...

Reginald Maudling--from bright future to sad end.(Reggie: The Life of Reginald Maudling)(Book Review)
June 1, 2005... Reggie: The Life of Reginald Maudling. Lewis Baston. Sutton Publishing. [pounds sterling]25.00. xvi + 604 pages. ISBN 0-7509-2924-3. This is a story of a man with a bright future in British politics who held high offices before a degrading...

The special relationship under L.B.J. and Wilson.(A 'Special Relationship'?: Harold Wilson, Lyndon B. Johnson and Anglo-American Relations 'At the Summit', 1964-68)(Book Review)
June 1, 2005... A 'Special Relationship'? Harold Wilson, Lyndon B. Johnson and Anglo-American Relations 'At the Summit', 1964-68. Jonathan Colman. Manchester University Press. [pounds sterling]50.00. vii + 192 pages. ISBN 0-7190-7010-4. There are two...

Lucia Joyce--the dancer at the Wake.(Lucia Joyce: To Dance in the Wake)(Book Review)
June 1, 2005... Lucia Joyce: To Dance in the Wake. Carol Loeb Shloss. Bloomsbury. [pounds sterling]20.00, 560 pages. ISBN 0-7475-7033-7. The name Lucia derives from the Italian word for light and Lucia Anna, James Joyce's daughter, was the light of her...

Arthur Miller--this very American writer.(Arthur Miller: A Critical Study)(Book Review)
June 1, 2005... Arthur Miller: A Critical Study. Christopher Bigsby. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]55.00. 550 pages. ISBN 0-521-84416-9. With the death of Arthur Miller all consideration of his work at this time gains a poignancy in place of...

The world of paperbacks.(books)
June 1, 2005... HARPER PERENNIAL has brought out Iain Finlayson's Browning: A Private Life ([pounds sterling]15.00) which was praised in this magazine as a 'well, often beautifully, written' biography with 'a considerable amount of worthwhile original...

The Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century English Literature.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
June 1, 2005... The Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century English Literature. Laura Marcus and Peter Nicholls, editors. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]95.00 (US$160.00). xiv + 886 pages. ISBN 0-521-82077-4. This latest volume in the new...

A Century of Premiers: Salisbury to Blair.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
June 1, 2005... A Century of Premiers: Salisbury to Blair. Dick Leonard. Palgrave Macmillan. [pounds sterling]55.00. viii + 383 pages. ISBN 0-333-91839-8. It has been argued that the list of Prime Ministers from Lord Salisbury to Tony Blair refutes the theory...

Obsessive Genius: The Inner World of Marie Curie.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
June 1, 2005... Obsessive Genius: The Inner World of Marie Curie. Barbara Goldsmith. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. [pounds sterling]14.99. 256 pages. 0-297-84767-8. Marie Curie remains the only woman who was twice awarded the Nobel Prize, for her work with...

Robert Louis Stevenson.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
June 1, 2005... Robert Louis Stevenson. Claire Harman. HarperCollins. [pounds sterling]25.00. xix + 503 pages. ISBN 0-00-711321-8. The author, who has already prepared editions of Stevenson's Essays and Poems and Selected Stories, describes Stevenson as 'a...

The Most Beautiful Gardens in the World.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
June 1, 2005... The Most Beautiful Gardens in the World. Alain le Toquin, photographer and Jacques Bosser, text. Harry N. Abrams. [pounds sterling]35.00. 260 pages. ISBN 0-8109-5584-9. This beautifully illustrated book (with 152 illustrations in full colour)...

I Would Not Be Forgotten: The Life and Work of Robert Stephen Hawker 1803-1875.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
June 1, 2005... I Would Not Be Forgotten: The Life and Work of Robert Stephen Hawker 1803-1875. Patrick Hutton. Tabb House. vi + 250 pages. ISBN 1-873951-44-2. 'Hawker of Morwenstow' is one of the more colourful and engaging of Victorian clergymen to have...

Armageddon: The Battle for Germany 1944-45.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
June 1, 2005... Armageddon: The Battle for Germany 1944-45. Max Hastings. Macmillan. [pounds sterling]25.00. xxiv + 664 pages. 0-333-90836-8. This study of the last two years of the Second World War may be seen as a sequel to the author's earlier book,...

The Welfare State in Britain since 1945.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
June 1, 2005... The Welfare State in Britain since 1945. Rodney Lowe. Palgrave Macmillan. [pounds sterling]49.50. xiii + 513 pages. ISBN 1-4039-1193-2. The first edition of Prof. Lowe's examination of the modern welfare state was published in 1993. Since then...

Waterloo: Napoleon's Last Gamble.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
June 1, 2005... Waterloo: Napoleon's Last Gamble. Andrew Roberts. HarperCollins. [pounds sterling]12.99. 143 pages. ISBN 0-00-719075-1. This short history is part of Harper Collins' 'Making History' series. The author is in no doubt that, despite the many...

Voltaire: The Universal Man.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
June 1, 2005... Voltaire: The Universal Man. Derek Parker. Sutton Publishing. [pounds sterling]20.00. xv + 240 pages. ISBN 0-7509-3440-9. Voltaire, the pen-name of Francois-Marie Arouet, has had quite a good press since his death in 1778. He is widely regarded...

On Literature.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
June 1, 2005... On Literature. Umberto Eco. Martin McLaughlin, translator. Secker & Warburg. [pounds sterling]17.99. viii + 335 pages. ISBN 0-436-21017-7. In this volume the novelist and essayist has collected his occasional writings and papers delivered at...

The Diaries of Charles Greville.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
June 1, 2005... The Diaries of Charles Greville. Edward Pearce with Deanna Pearce, editors. Pimlico. [pounds sterling]18.99. xviii + 358 pages. ISBN 1-8441-3404-0. In their introduction the editors are right to claim that Greville, a clerk to the Privy Council...

Bury the Chains: The British Struggle to Abolish Slavery.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
June 1, 2005... Bury the Chains: The British Struggle to Abolish Slavery. Adam Hochschild. Macmillan. [pounds sterling]20.00. xi + 467 pages. ISBN 0-333-90591-5. This study, first published in the United States, is the story of the Society for the Suppression...

The Fall of Baghdad.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
June 1, 2005... The Fall of Baghdad. Jon Lee Anderson. Little, Brown. [pounds sterling]20.00. x + 389 pages. ISBN 0-316-72990-6. Mr Anderson's book, first published in the United States, is a first-hand account not just of the second Iraq war but of Iraq under...

Madame de Stael.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
June 1, 2005... Madame de Stael. Maria Fairweather. Constable. [pounds sterling]25.00. xxii + 522 pages. ISBN 1-84119-814-1. As the author says, 'writing a life of Madame de Stael is a little like trying to control a coach driven by several horses each one...

The Vote: How It was Won and How It was Undermined.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
June 1, 2005... The Vote: How It was Won and How It was Undermined. Paul Foot. Viking. [pounds sterling]25.00. xiv + 506 pages. ISBN 0-670-91536-X. The late Paul Foot, famed for his radical socialist journalism, was part of the great Foot dynasty of Labour...

Mary Seacole: The Charismatic Black Nurse Who Became a Heroine of the Crimea.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
June 1, 2005... Mary Seacole: The Charismatic Black Nurse Who Became a Heroine of the Crimea. Jane Robinson. Constable. [pounds sterling]12.99 p.b. ISBN 1-84119-677-0. The efforts of the intelligentsia to convince the British people that they now live in a...

The Cambridge Companion to W.H. Auden.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
June 1, 2005... The Cambridge Companion to W.H. Auden. Stan Smith, editor. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]45.00 (US$65.00). xxi + 261 pages. ISBN 0-521-82962-3. As the editor writes in his Introduction, Auden's verse has the ability 'to sing from...

The Habit of Victory: The Story of the Royal Navy 1545 to 1945.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
June 1, 2005... The Habit of Victory: The Story of the Royal Navy 1545 to 1945. Captain Peter Hore. Sidgwick & Jackson. [pounds sterling]25.00. ix + 450 pages. ISBN 0-283-07312-8. The author, himself a retired Royal Navy captain, has set out here not to write...

The Thames.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
June 1, 2005... The Thames: England's River. Jonathan Schneer. Little, Brown. [pounds sterling]18.99. xv + 330 pages. ISBN 0-316-86139-1. The book is, the author claims, the first history of the Thames to cover its entire length and throughout recorded history...

Christ's: A Cambridge College Over Five Centuries.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
June 1, 2005... Christ's: A Cambridge College Over Five Centuries. David Reynolds, editor. Macmillan. [pounds sterling]25.00. xvi+ 266 pages. ISBN 0-333-98988-0. Christ's, famous in part for its role in spreading Puritanism in the seventeenth century, began...

War and the Media: Reportage and Propaganda, 1900-2003.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
June 1, 2005... War and the Media: Reportage and Propaganda, 1900-2003. Mark Connelly and David Welch, editors. I.B. Tauris. [pounds sterling]39.50. xxi + 304 pages. ISBN 1-86064-959-9. This collection is based on a conference sponsored by the University of...

Carnegie: 'The Richest Man in the World'.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
June 1, 2005... Carnegie: 'The Richest Man in the World'. Raymond Lamont-Brown. Sutton Publishing. [pounds sterling]20.00. x + 246 pages. ISBN 0-7509-3370-4. Andrew Carnegie remains the best example of the rags-to-riches story from a century which loved them....

The Siege of Derry.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
June 1, 2005... The Siege of Derry. Carlo Gebler. Little, Brown. [pounds sterling]18.99. xvii + 364 pages. ISBN 0-316-86128-6. The 105-day siege of Londonderry which began in December 1688 remains the most important in British history. Because the Protestant...

England and the Spanish Armada: The Necessary Quarrel.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
June 1, 2005... England and the Spanish Armada: The Necessary Quarrel. James McDermott. Yale University Press. [pounds sterling]25.00. xvi + 411 pages. ISBN 0-300-10698-X. As the subtitle indicates, the author argues that earlier historical events meant a...

Hostages to Fortune: Winston Churchill and the Loss of the Prince of Wales and Repulse.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
June 1, 2005... Hostages to Fortune: Winston Churchill and the Loss of the Prince of Wales and Repulse. Arthur Nicholson. Sutton Publishing. [pounds sterling]19.99. xxii + 234 pages. ISBN 0-7509-3948-6. There have been several new studies which re-examine the...