Contemporary Review articles from June 2008

Contemporary Review archives from June 2008

Modernising one village in Afghanistan.(Report)
June 22, 2008... MODERNIZATION in the Western World did not normally originate from the top but from below, through grass-roots participation in the economic, social, cultural and political arenas. Development trends were different for countries of the...

Food versus fuel in the Philippines.
June 22, 2008... Editorial Note: In recent months almost every country in the world has suffered sharp rises in the prices of basic food. The UN says that world food prices have risen 45 per cent in nine months which puts the 15 per cent rise in bread prices in...

Bitten by the bear: the British Council and Russia.(Report)
June 22, 2008... IT seemed a bold move on the part of the British Council to try reopening its offices in Ekaterinburg and St Petersburg after the end of the Russian New Year. The British Council was created in 1934. One of its main functions is to promote the...

China's Confucius and Western democracy.
June 22, 2008... CHINA'S reaction to the protests in the name of human rights in Tibet which have greeted the Olympic flame in several countries has focused attention on the way in which the authorities in China regard such fundamental Western values as freedom...

The Catholic Church in Mexico.(Essay)
June 22, 2008... L' Eglise a deux genres d' ennemis; le premier la persecute, le second s' en detourne. Le second est le plus fort Julien Green Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States General Porfirio Diaz, President of Mexico...

India's untouchables: the dalits.(Report)
June 22, 2008... IN the Indian caste system for many centuries, some say 3,000 years, there has been a group of people at the bottom of the scale--some may say off the scale altogether. Originally, and for ages, they were known as Untouchables and are often...

Protecting the world's cultural heritage.
June 22, 2008... FIVE years ago, beginning in March 2003, the United States, Britain and Australia invaded Iraq. Among the casualties were the valuable items of cultural heritage held in such places as the Iraq Museum, National Library, National Archives and...

The English years of Robert Frost.(Biography)
June 22, 2008... 'Two roads diverged in a wood and I--I took the one less traveled by,And that has made all the difference.' From 'The Road Not Taken' by Robert Frost ROBERT Frost (1874-1963) was the most popular American poet of the twentieth century....

The Caribbean tourist trade and climate change.
June 22, 2008... HURRICANES and rising sea levels are threatening Caribbean tourism. So how will the region's most important industry safeguard its future? Kory South has spent the last fifteen years building his dream resort in St Elizabeth, Jamaica. But...

Cinema history in The National Archives.
June 22, 2008... THE British government found itself paying attention to the cinema industry from an early stage. Answering a Parliamentary Question on juvenile crime the Home Secretary, Sir John Simon, told the House of Commons in May 1916, 'it is generally...

Art note: the provenance of Cranach's 'Cupid complaining to Venus'.(Lucas Cranach)(Critical essay)
June 22, 2008... The Elder Lucas Cranach's painting of Cupid, stung by bees whilst stealing a honey comb, and complaining to Venus, was painted in about 1526 and is signed with his batwinged serpent. It was bought by the London National Gallery in 1963. I wrote...

Cranach at the Royal Academy.(exhibition of Lucas Cranach's pictures)(Critical essay)
June 22, 2008... THE Royal Academy's sumptuous exhibition, Cranach, has been an occasion for rejoicing. It is the largest display of the pictures of Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1553) ever seen in this country, with over ninety panel-paintings and 23 works on...

Venturing the real: the significance of C.P. snow.(Charles Percy Snow)(Critical essay)
June 22, 2008... IN Their Wisdom, a late novel, is not a title to quicken the spirit. The first paperback edition, in the 1970s, showed a group of elderly men, silver haired, dark-suited, grave and judicious. These elder statesmen, however wise, did not connect...

CAN FOREIGN AID EVER WORK?(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Does Foreign Aid Really Work? Roger C. Riddell. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]18.99. xxvi + 505 pages. ISBN 978-0-19-929565-4. Roger Riddell is a highly qualified man who has spent his working life in the world of international...

THE END OF THE RAJ.(The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan. Yasmin Khan. Yale University Press. [pounds sterling]19.99. xxv + 251 pages. ISBN 978-0-300-12078-3. Anyone who grew up after 1947 and who has only an abstract or simplified impression...

Sociology and globalisation.(Globalization and Everyday Life)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Globalization and Everyday Life. Larry Ray. Routledge. [pounds sterling]65.00. xviii + 238 pages. ISBN 978-0-415-34095-3. There is a widespread view of globalization as an emergent sinister process that is destroying society and the state....

Recent Church History--a Survey.(Book review)
June 22, 2008... The Church in the Early Middle Ages. G.R. Evans. I.B. Tauris. [pounds sterling]19.50. xxiv + 202 pages. ISBN 978-1-84511-150-2. The Church in the Modern Age. Jeremy Morris.I.B. Tauris. [pounds sterling]19.50. xxxi + 224 pages. ISBN...

THE US AND THE MIDDLE EAST 1953-1963.(The Greater Middle East and the Cold War: US Foreign Policy under Eisenhower and Kennedy)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... The Greater Middle East and the Cold War: US Foreign Policy under Eisenhower and Kennedy. Roby C. Barrett. T.B. Tauris. [pound sterling] 59.50. xix + 494 pages. ISBN: 978-1-84511-393. As the United States contemplates an honourable exit...

Noam Chomsky on America, peace and war.(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Interventions. Noam Chomsky. Hamish Hamilton. [pounds sterling]12.99. xxi + 232 pages. ISBN 978-0-241-14386-5. In crystalline phrases Noam Chomsky distils his thoughts on peace and war, and how tension and terror shape the North Atlantic...

Nixon and Kissinger's double act.(Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power. Robert Dallek. Allen Lane. [Pounds sterling]30.00. xii + 740 pages. ISBN 978-0-713-99796-5. Robert Dallek, a biographer of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, has now directed his considerable...

A Disappointing life of Shakespeare.(Shakespeare: The World as a Stage)(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Shakespeare: The World as a Stage. Bill Bryson. Atlas Books/Harper Press. [pounds sterling]14.99. 200 pages. ISBN 978-0-00-719789-7. Look at an obituary photograph. It is, say, of a dashing, handsome, young officer, taken about the time he...

The world of paperbacks.
June 22, 2008... VINTAGE BOOKS lead this issue's releases with a wide range of new titles. First we have the two volumes of Jerry White's history of London: London in the Nineteenth Century: A Human Awful Wonder of God and London in the Twentieth Century: A...

The Thorn of Lion City: A Memoir.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... The Thorn of Lion City: A Memoir. Lucy Lum. Fourth Estate. [pounds sterling]14.99. vi + 231 pages. ISBN 978-0-00-720034-4. This recollection of childhood is unusual and gives readers an insight into a world virtually unknown in Britain. The...

Brigitte Bardot: A Biography. Barnett Singer.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Brigitte Bardot: A Biography. Barnett Singer. McFarland & Co. Can$45.00. vi + 202 pages. ISBN9780-7864-2515-0. Prof. Singer has spent much of his time examining contemporary French culture within which the film actress, Brigitte Bardot, was for...

The Pursuit of Glory: Europe 1648-1815.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... The Pursuit of Glory: Europe 1648-1815. Tim Blanning. Allen Lane. [pounds sterling]30.00. xxvii + 708 pages. ISBN 978-0-713-99087-4. Survey histories are always difficult to write if easy to read. In this instance Prof. Blanning has done his...

The Megalithic Monuments of Britain and Ireland.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... The Megalithic Monuments of Britain and Ireland. Chris Scarre. Thames & Hudson. [pounds sterling]12.95 p.b. 160 pages. ISBN 978-0-500-28666-1. This title, which was first published is Paris in 2005, is concerned with the monuments of the...

Fleeing Hitler: France 1940. Hanna Diamond. Oxford University Press.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Fleeing Hitler: France 1940. Hanna Diamond. Oxford University Press [pounds sterling]16.99. xv + 255 pages. ISBN 978-0-19-280618-5. The capitulations of France to the Germans in 1940 inevitably meant the loss of Paris, the prize which had...

India after Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... India after Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy. Ramachandra Guha. Macmillan. [pounds sterling]25.00. xxvii + 900 pages. ISBN 978-0-230-01654-5. Independent India has been 'a puzzle not just to casual observers or...

Faust in Copenhagen: A Struggle for the Soul of Physics.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Faust in Copenhagen: A Struggle for the Soul of Physics. Gino Segre. Jonathan Cape. [pounds sterling]20.00. x + 310 pages. ISBN 978-0-224-07256-4. Prof. Segre devotes this interesting book to a meeting in Copenhagen in April 1932 in which six...

The Fears of Henry IV: The Life of England's Self-Made King.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... The Fears of Henry IV: The Life of England's Self-Made King. Ian Mortimer. Jonathan Cape. [pounds sterling]18.99. xv + 480 pages. ISBN 978-0-224-07300-4. This enjoyable and ably written biography is intended to lift Henry IV from the 'shadows...

The Writings of St Paul. Wayne A. Meeks and John T. Fitzgerald, editors. W.W. Norton.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... The Writings of St Paul. Wayne A. Meeks and John T. Fitzgerald, editors. W.W. Norton. [pounds sterling]8.99 p.b. xxxv + 710 pages. ISBN 978-0-393-97280-1. This is a new edition of the collection first published in 1972 and is in many ways a new...

The Line Upon a Wind.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... The Line Upon a Wind. Noel Mostert. Jonathan Cape. [pounds sterling]25.00 xxiv + 773 pages. ISBN 978-0-224-06922-9. This impressive history is concerned with 'the greatest war under sail and the first real world war', that between Britain and...

Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia. John Gray. Allen Lane. [pounds sterling]18.99. ix + 243 pages. ISBN 978-0-713-99915-0. To Prof. Gray, 'Modern politics is a chapter in the history of religion'. Of course everything...

The New Protective State: Government, Intelligence and Terrorism.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... The New Protective State: Government, Intelligence and Terrorism. Peter Hennessy. Continuum. [pounds sterling]16.99. vii+184. ISBN 978-0-8264-9614-0. This collection of eight essays, plus an introduction and epilogue by the editor, looks at how...

Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions That changed the World,1940-1941.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions that changed the World 1940-41. Ian Kershaw. Allen Lane. [pounds sterling]30.00. xxiv+624 pages. ISBN 978-0713-99712-5. In this stimulating book one of our leading historians of the Second World War looks closely...

Death and the Maidens: Fanny Wollstonecraft and the Shelley Circle.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Death and the Maidens: Fanny Wollstonecraft and the Shelley Circle. Janet Todd. Profile Books. [pounds sterling]17.99. xviii+297 pages. ISBN 978-1-86197-955-1. Having written a biography of Mary Wollstonecraft it was perhaps inevitable that...

The Business of Books: Booksellers and the English Book Trade.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... The Business of Books: Booksellers and the English Book Trade 1450-1850. James Raven. Yale University Press. [pounds sterling]35.00. xviii+493 pages. ISBN 978-0-300-12261-9. Prof. Raven has here undertaken a mighty subject, the beginning and...

Jane Boleyn: the Infamous Lady Rochford. Julia Fox. Weidenfeld & Nicolson.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Jane Boleyn: the Infamous Lady Rochford. Julia Fox. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. [pounds sterling]20.00. xviii + 398 pages. ISBN 978-0-297-85081-6. This biogroaphy is an attempt at historical reconstruction. Jane Boleyn is remembered as Anne's...

The Rash Adventurer: A Life of John Pendlebury. Imogen Grundon. Libri.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... The Rash Adventurer: A Life of John Pendlebury. Imogen Grundon. Libri. [pounds sterling]25.00. xv + 382 pages. ISBN 978-1-901965-060-3. John Pendlebury was a Cambridge-educated archaeologist who directed the dig at Tell el-Amarna. As an...

Worcestershire. Alan Brooks and Nikolaus Pevsner. Yale University Press.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Worcestershire. Alan Brooks and Nikolaus Pevsner. Yale University Press. [pounds sterling]29.95. xviii+846 pages. ISBN 978-0-300-11298-6. This volume of The Buildings of England series replaces the 1968 edition by Pevsner. It covers the same...

The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression. Amith Shlaes. Jonathan Cape. [pounds sterling]25.00. xiv + 464 pages. ISBN 978-0-224-06312-8. This history, which was first published in the US, is a much needed re-examination of what...

The Death of Socrates: Hero, Villain, Chatterbox, Saint. Emily Wilson. Profile.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... The Death of Socrates: Hero, Villain, Chatterbox, Saint. Emily Wilson. Profile. [pounds sterling]15.99. vii + 247 pages. ISBN 978-1-86197-762-5. This latest volume in the 'Profiles in History' series sets out to answer one question: why is...

Fathers 4 Justice: The Inside Story. Matt O'Connor. Weidenfeld & Nicolson.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Fathers 4 Justice: The Inside Story. Matt O'Connor. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. [pounds sterling]18.99. xvii + 357 pages. ISBN 978-0-297-85306-0. This is the story of a shipwreck, a social shipwreck in which one group of hitherto ignored survivors...

The Salient: Ypres, 1914-1918. Alan Palmer. Constable.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... The Salient: Ypres, 1914-1918. Alan Palmer. Constable. [pounds sterling]20.00. xvii + 270 pages. ISBN 978-1-84119-633-6. As Mr Palmer writes, 'Ypres was a defensive victory won by endurance and dogged determination in a series of battles'. The...

Chartism: A New History. Malcolm Chase. Manchester University Press.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Chartism: A New History. Malcolm Chase. Manchester University Press. [pounds sterling]60.00. x + 421 pages. ISBN 978-0-7190-6086-1. What we know as Chartism was 'the first (and arguably still the greatest) mass political movement in...

Absolute War: Soviet Russia in the Second World War: A Modern History.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Absolute War: Soviet Russia in the Second World War: A Modern History. Chris Bellamy. Macmillan. [pounds sterling]30.00. xxix + 813 pages. ISBN 878-0-333-78022-0. Prof. Bellamy has set himself an enormous task, to tell the story of the eastern...

The Cambridge Companion to the Bible. Bruce Chilton.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... The Cambridge Companion to the Bible. Bruce Chilton, general editor. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]22.99 (US $34.99) x + 724 pages. ISBN 978-0-521-86997-3. This is a second edition to a title first published in 1997, which was...

Shopping, Seduction & Mr Selfridge. Lindy Woodhead. Profile Books.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Shopping, Seduction & Mr Selfridge. Lindy Woodhead. Profile Books. [pounds sterling]17.99. x+310 pages. ISBN 978-1-86197-888-2. Of all the owners of the new, departmental stores in the late nineteenth century, none understood the concept of...

Robert Schumann: Life and Death of a Musician.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Robert Schumann: Life and Death of a Musician. John Worthen. Yale University Press. [pounds sterling]25.00. xvi+496 pages. ISBN 978-0-300-11160-6. Prof. Worthen's aim is a challenging one, to 'free him [Schumann] from preconceptions about...

The King's Most Loyal Enemy Aliens: Germans Who Fought for Britain in the Second World War.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... The King's Most Loyal Enemy Aliens: Germans Who Fought for Britain in the Second World War. Helen Fry. Sutton Publishing. [pounds sterling]18.99. xv + 240 pages. ISBN 978-0-7509-4700-8. The author calls her story 'extraordinary' and she is...

Language in the British Isles. David Britain, editor. Cambridge University Press.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Language in the British Isles. David Britain, editor. Cambridge University Press. 50.00. xiii+508 pages. ISBN 978-0-521-79488-6. This collection of twenty-five essays is in effect a replacement of Peter Trudgill's Language in the British Isles...

Passchendaele. Peter Barton. Constable in association with the Imperial War Museum.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Passchendaele. Peter Barton. Constable in association with the Imperial War Museum. [pounds sterling]30.00. 468 pages. ISBN 978-1 -84529-422-9. To most readers 'Passchendaele' refers to the 1917 battles that, like the word, 'Somme', summarise...

The Architecture of the Italian Renaissance.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... The Architecture of the Italian Renaissance. Christopher Luitpold Frommel. Peter Spring, translator. Thames & Hudson. [pounds sterling]38.00. 224 pages. ISBN 978-0-500-34220-2. One is used to magnificant books from Thames & Hudson but this is a...

Devolution and Power in the United Kingdom.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Devolution and Power in the United Kingdom. Alan Trench, editor. Manchester University Press. [pounds sterling]60.00. xiii+316 pages. ISBN 978-0-7190-7575-9. When the Blair administration set out to remake the Constitution they brought in...

The Indian Mutiny. Julian Spilsbury. Weidenfeld & Nicolson.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... The Indian Mutiny. Julian Spilsbury. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. [pounds sterling]20.00. 373 pages. ISBN 978-0-297-84651-2. The Indian Mutiny still reverberates after over 150 years. In this new study the author sets out to be even-handed and in his...

The Force of Destiny: A History of Italy since 1796.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... The Force of Destiny: A History of Italy since 1796. Christopher Duggan. Allen Lane. [pounds sterling]30.00. xxxi + 653 pages. ISBN 978-0-713-99709-5. The unification of Italy was like one of Verdi's operas, from which Mr Duggan takes his...

World War One: A Short History. Norman Stone. Allen Lane.(The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... World War One: A Short History. Norman Stone. Allen Lane. [pounds sterling]16.99. xiii+ 187 pages. ISBN 978-1-846-14013-6. There are numerous ways for historians to approach the Great War. Prof. Norman, whose works include The Eastern Front,...

Being Shelley: The Poet's Search for Himself. Ann Wroe. Jonathan Cape.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Being Shelley: The Poet's Search for Himself. Ann Wroe. Jonathan Cape. [pounds sterling]25.00. xii + 452 pages. ISBN 978-0-224-08078-1. This is, we are told, an 'inside out' biography, a study not of Shelley and his poetry but of Shelley's...

The Few: July-October 1940. Alex Kershaw. Michael Joseph.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... The Few: July-October 1940. Alex Kershaw. Michael Joseph. [pounds sterling]18.99. xv + 314 pages. ISBN 978-0-718-14746-4. In this study, first published in the US by Da Capo Press, the author adopts something of a 'you were there' approach. By...

Dynamic of Destruction: Culture and Mass Killing in the First World War. Alan Kramer. Oxford University Press.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Dynamic of Destruction: Culture and Mass Killing in the First World War. Alan Kramer. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]18.99. xi + 434 pages. ISBN 978-0-19-280342-9. This interesting study begins with one of the most famous German...

Priestley's England: J.B. Priestley and English Culture. John Baxendale. Manchester University Press.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Priestley's England: J.B. Priestley and English Culture. John Baxendale. Manchester University Press. [pounds sterling]50.00. vii + 213 pages. ISBN 978-0-7190-7286-4. Priestley was a Yorkshire-born novelist, playwright and essayist whose radio...

A Garden of Eden in Hell: the Life of Alice Herz-Sommer.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... A Garden of Eden in Hell: the Life of Alice Herz-Sommer. Melissa Muller and Reinhard Piechocki. Macmillan. [pounds sterling]18.99. xiv + 341 pages. ISBN 978-0-230-52802-4. This biography, first published in 2006 in Germany, is of the Jewish...

Taming the Leviathan: Taming the Reception of the Political and Religious Ideas of Thomas Hobbes in England 1640-1700.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Taming the Leviathan: Taming the Reception of the Political and Religious Ideas of Thomas Hobbes in England 1640-1700. Jon Parkin. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]60.00 (US$115.00). xi + 449 pages. ISBN 978-0-521-87735-0. Hobbes'...

Princess Margaret: A Life Unravelled.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Princess Margaret: A Life Unravelled. Tim Heald. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. [pounds sterling]20.00. xxii+346 pages. ISBN 978-0-297-84820-2. Those old enough to remember the 1950s remember that Princess Margaret Rose was the 'Diana' of her age,...

Food: The History of Taste. Paul Freedman.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Food: The History of Taste. Paul Freedman, editor. Thames & Hudson. [pounds sterling]24,95. 368 pages. ISBN 978-0-500-25135-5. This fascinating collection, lavishly illustrated with 238 illustrations of which 97 are in colour, is devoted to...

More Time for Politics: Diaries 2001-2007.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... More Time for Politics: Diaries 2001-2007. Tony Benn. Ruth Winstone, editor. Hutchinson. [pounds sterling]20.00. + 400 pages. ISBN 978-0-0919-2056-2. Tony Benn will not be remembered, if he is remembered, as a great minister of state but as an...

The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944. Rick Atkinson. Little, Brown. [pounds sterling]25.00. xvii+ 791 pages. ISBN 9978-0-316-72560-6. This detailed study, first published in the US, is the second part of the author's...

The Mitfords: Letters between Six Sisters.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters. Charlotte Mosley, editor. Fourth Estate. [pounds sterling]25.00. xxiii + 834 pages. ISBN 978-1-84115-790-0. There remains a fascination (mysterious to those who do not share it) with the six daughters...

The Oxford Handbook of Early American Literature.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... The Oxford Handbook of Early American Literature. Kevin J. Hayes, editor. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]85.00. xv + 636 pages. ISBN 978-0-19-518727-4. This collection of 26 essays by a team of 25 scholars seeks to 'consolidate...

The First Day of the Blitz: September 7, 1940. Peter Stansky. Yale University Press.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... The First Day of the Blitz: September 7, 1940. Peter Stansky. Yale University Press. [pounds sterling]16.99. xii + 212 pages. ISBN 978-0-300-12556-6. The Blitz covers the concentrated aerial bombardment of London and a host of British and...

Ireland: The Politics of Enmity, 1789-2006. Paul Bew. Oxford University Press.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Ireland: The Politics of Enmity 1789-2006. Paul Bew. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]35.00. xiii + 613 pages. ISBN 978-0-19-820555-5. Some might think Prof. Bew has drawn the short straw in the Oxford History of Modern Europe series...

The Last Thousand Days of the British Empire.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... The Last Thousand Days of the British Empire. Peter Clarke. Allen Lane. [pounds sterling]25.00. xxvii + 560 pages. ISBN 978-0-713-99830-6. For Prof. Clarke the end of the Empire was a result of the Second World War. For Britain this was 'an...

The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews 1939-1945.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews 1939-1945. Saul Friedlander. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. [pounds sterling]30.00. xxvi + 870 pages. ISBN 978-0-297-81877-9. This is the sequel to Prof. Friedlander's When Memory Comes which...

Machiavelli. Ross King. HarperPress.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Machiavelli. Ross King. HarperPress. [pounds sterling]14.99. ix + 245 pages. ISBN 978-0-00-726127-7. Mr. King begins his biography, part of Harper Press's 'Eminent Lives' series, with the fall of Savonarola in 1498. He makes great use of his...

George III: A Life in Caricature.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... George III: A Life in Caricature. Kenneth Baker. Thames & Hudson. [pounds sterling]24.95. 224 pages. ISBN 9778-0-500-25140-9. This is the second collection of political caricatures edited by Lord Baker; the first is about the King's successor,...

Aces Falling: War above the Trenches, 1918. Peter Hart. Weidenfeld & Nicolson.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Aces Falling: War Above the Trenches, 1918. Peter Hart. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. [pounds sterling]22.50. xiii + 386 pages. ISBN 978-0-297-84653-6. By 1918, aerial warfare had reached 'an impressive maturity of both purpose and achievement'. That...

A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility. Taner Akcam. Paul Bessemer, translator. Constable. [pounds sterling]9.99 p.b. xxvii + 580 pages. ISBN 978-1-84529-552-3. This title was first published in Turkey...

The Plot against Pepys.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... The Plot against Pepys. James Long and Ben Long. Faber and Faber. [pounds sterling]17.99. xiv + 322 pages. ISBN 978-0-571-22713-6. The imprisonment of Pepys on charges of treason levied by his enemies in the Commons in 1679 has long fascinated...

The Future of Terror. Frank Barnaby. Granta Books.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... The Future of Terror. Frank Barnaby. Granta Books. [pounds sterling]9.99 p.b. viii + 242 + i. ISBN 978-1-86207-871-0. The author, a scientist by training, uses his text to 'evaluate the terrorist threat by considering the lessons of the past...

Modernism and Fascism: The Sense of a Beginning under Mussolini and Hitler. Roger Griffin. Palgrave.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Modernism and Fascism: The Sense of a Beginning under Mussolini and Hitler. Roger Griffin. Palgrave. [pounds sterling]53.00. xv + 470 pages. ISBN 978-1-4039-8784-6. This is Prof. Griffin's second major study of European Fascism and in it he...

The World Crisis: The Way Forward after Iraq.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... The World Crisis: The Way Forward after Iraq. Robert Harvey, editor. Constable. [pounds sterling]8.99 p.b. xxii + 250 pages. ISBN 978-1-84529-8870-8. This collection of twenty essays, including the introduction by the editor, look at what Lord...

Egypt: Through Writers' Eyes.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Egypt through Writers' Eyes. Deborah Manley and Sahar Abdel-Hakim, editors. Elland. [pounds sterling]12,99 p.b. xv + 227 pages. ISBN 978-095501056-9. Persia through Writers' Eyes. David Blow, editor. Elland. [pounds sterling]14.99. xii + 403...

The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes's Leviathan.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes's Leviathan. Patricia Springborg, editor. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]48.00 (US$85.00). xix + 533 pages. ISBN 978-0-521-54521-1. As the editor writes in her general introduction this is perhaps...

Endgame 1945: Victory, Retribution, Liberation.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Endgame 1945: Victory, Retribution, Liberation. David Stafford. Little, Brown. [pounds sterling]20.00. xxi + 581 pages. ISBN 978-0-316-72794-5. Mr Stafford's opening sentence-'Wars do not end when the fighting stops, and military victory in...