Contemporary Review articles from March 2001

Contemporary Review archives from March 2001

HEBRON: AN AVERAGE DAY IN THE GRAVEYARD OF INNOCENCE.
March 1, 2001... Editor's Note: Charles Foster is a freelance writer with experience in a number of theatres of war including South Lebanon, Bosnia and the West Bank. In December 2000 he went back to Hebron, one of the most volatile towns in the West Bank. ...

CLEARING LAND MINES.
March 1, 2001... SINCE 1939 there has been conflict of one kind or another in no less than sixty-eight countries. Every one, war, civil war or terrorist campaign, eventually comes to an end, but it leaves many kinds of dangerous debris in its wake. This is then...

ANXIOUS ANATOMISTS OF BLAIR'S BRITAIN.
March 1, 2001... THE days when Tony Blair was Britain's darling, basking in endlessly flattering opinion polls, have begun to seem like some episode of mass hallucination. Against a background of mounting public cynicism about politicians as a breed, the New...

THE BLACK SEA: ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENTS AND ENVIRONMENTAL DANGERS.
March 1, 2001... SHIPPING across the crowded Black Sea should expand substantially this year. Export volumes may well show quite dramatic growth under the dual stimulus of the reopening of the Danube waterway in the West in a few months' time and the aggressive...

Correction.(Correction Notice)
March 1, 2001... Thomas Land writes that his article Frustrated Hungary Flirts with Far-Right Politics, in the January 2001 number of the Contemporary Review, contains a mistake. The second paragraph (page 1, line 10) should have read '... the far-Right and the...

EAST TIMOR: ON THE ROAD TO INDEPENDENCE.
March 1, 2001... EAST Timor will become the 190th member of the United Nations when it achieves independence sometime this year. It is currently governed by the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) and there is a Cabinet of the...

THE RUSSIAN APPROACH TO HUMAN RIGHTS INTERVENTION.
March 1, 2001... THE end of the Cold War and the emergence of the United States as the only superpower raised several questions concerning the direction of the country's foreign policy. There is an assumption, at least among some representatives of the American...

MALCOLM BRADBURY: A HISTORY MAN FOR OUR TIMES.
March 1, 2001... THE death last November of the academic and author Malcolm Bradbury from a rare form of pneumonia has robbed British Literature of a generous and expansive voice which had much to say over the last forty years. Bradbury rose to the top of an...

THE QUIETUDE OF THE PAINTER DOU.
March 1, 2001... THIS winter the largest-ever collection of the paintings of Gerrit Dou, consummate in all their tiny magic, travelled to Washington, Dulwich and The Hague from as far afield as Stockholm and St Petersburg. Dou's pictures have wandered much...

THE GEORGIAN POETS IN DYMOCK.
March 1, 2001... IN the cool stone nave of St. Mary's Church in the remote north-west Gloucestershire village of Dymock, there hang, as banners do in other churches up and down the land, a series of large, hinged, glass frames, projecting in a bunch from the...

AMERICA'S NATIONAL PARK SERVICE.
March 1, 2001... POLITICIANS, particularly at the national level, are increasingly viewed with disdain by a significant percentage of the American public. Ordinary men and women are wearied and disgusted by their political representatives. They feel powerless...

One World Divisible: A Global History Since 1945.(Review)
March 1, 2001... One World Divisible: A Global History Since 1945. David Reynolds. Allen Lane: The Penguin Press. [pound]25.00. 896 pages. ISBN 0713994614. Britannia Overruled: British Policy and World Power in the Twentieth Century Longman. [pound]15.99 p.b....

Unchained Eagle.(Review)
March 1, 2001... Unchained Eagle. Germany after the Wall. Tom Heneghan. Reuters. [pound]18.99. 245 pages. ISBN 0-273-65012-2. Germany's national symbol has been the eagle since Charlemagne was emperor from 800 to 814. Its wings have been shown in different...

The Transformation of Governance in the European Union.(Review)
March 1, 2001... The Transformation of Governance in the European Union. Beate Kohler-Koch and Rainer Eising, editors. Routledge. [pound]60.00. 320 pages. ISBN 0-415-21548-X. When interviewed in 1986, Roy Jenkins, erstwhile President of the European...

Contemporary American Fiction: An Introduction to American Fiction since 1970.(Review)
March 1, 2001... Contemporary American Fiction: An Introduction to American Fiction since 1970. Kenneth Millard. Oxford University Press. [pound]9.99 p.b. 328 pages. ISBN 0-19-871178-6. Kenneth Millard has achieved something quite staggering: he has...

Henry V, War Criminal? and Other Shakespeare Puzzles.(Review)
March 1, 2001... Henry V, War Criminal? and Other Shakespeare Puzzles. John Sutherland and Cedric Watts. Introduction by Stephen Orgel. Oxford University Press. [pound]4.99 p.b. ISBN 0-19-28379-2. This is the fourth in John Sutherland's entertaining series...

A Short Walk Down Fleet Street: From Beaverbrook to Boycott.(Review)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... A Short Walk Down Fleet Street: From Beaverbrook to Boycott. Alan Watkins. Duckworth. [pound]18.00. ISBN 0-7156-29107. If this book has a hero, writes Alan Watkins, it is Fleet Street in its silver age, from about 1955 to about 1985. It is...

Early Christian Ireland.(Review)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... Early Christian Ireland. T. M. Edwards. Cambridge University Press. [pound]45.00/US$69.96. 707 pages. ISBN 0-521-36395-0. This massive survey begins with a tour' of Ireland in the seventh century and concludes with the Viking invasions of the...

A History of Harrow School 1324-1991.(Review)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... A History of Harrow School 1324-1991. Christopher Tyerman. Oxford University Press. [pound]30.00. 599 pages. ISBN 0-19-822796-5. This is the first history of Harrow to appear for over fifty years and the first to be based on the full use of the...

Romanesque and Gothic France: Architecture and Sculpture.(Review)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... Romanesque and Gothic France: Architecture and Sculpture. Viviane Minne-Seve and Herve Kergall. Jack Hawkes and Lory Frankel, translators. Harry N. Abrams. [pound]48.00. 411 pages. ISBN 0-8109-4436-7. This magnificent book is not just a survey...

Eastern Europe 1945-1969: From Stalinism to Stagnation.(Review)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... Eastern Europe 1945-1969: From Stalinism to Stagnation. Ben Fowkes. Longman. [pound]9.99 p.b. 158 pages. ISBN 0-582-32693-1. This new title in Loagman's 'Seminar Studies in History', like others in the series, combines analysis with original...

The Cambridge Translations of Medieval Philosophical Texts.(Review)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... The Cambridge Translations of Medieval Philosophical Texts. Volume Two: Ethics and Political Philosophy. Arthur Stephen McGrade, John Kilcullen and Matthew Kempshall, editors. Cambridge University Press. [pound]52.50 h.b. and [pound]18.95 p.b....

Time and Work in England 1750-1830.(Review)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... Time and Work in England 1750-1830. Hans-Joachim Voth. Clarendon Press, Oxford. [pound]40.00. 304 pages. ISBN 0-19-924194-5. The industrial revolution, which transformed English life and made England the world's first industrial power,...

Napoleon and Marie Louise: The Second Empress.(Review)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... Napoleon and Marie Louise: The Second Empress. Alan Palmer. Constable. [pound]20.00. 268 pages. ISBN 0-09-479860-5. The author is one of Britain's most popular and most prolific biographers, a writer who specialises in the great and famous....

Never Ones for Theory? England and the War of Ideas.(Review)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... Never Ones for Theory? England and the War of Ideas. George Watson. The Lutterworth Press. [pound]40.00. 143 pages. ISBN 0-7188-3009-1. In this study of twelve writers the author looks at the traditional view that Englishmen have no time for...

The Great Hedge of India.(Review)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... The Great Hedge of India. Roy Moxham. Constable. [pound]14.99. 234 pages. ISBN 1-84119-260-0. This book investigates one of the least known aspects of British rule in India, the building of a hedge that ran for 1500 miles, was fourteen feet...

St George: Hero, Martyr and Myth.(Review)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... St George: Hero, Martyr and Myth. Samantha Riches. Sutton Publishing. [pound]20.00/US$29.95, 236 pages. ISBN 07509-2452-7. This claims to be the most exhaustive study yet of the cult of St George, an 'enigma personified' in the author's words....

The Last Days of Dublin Castle: The Diaries of Mark Sturgis.(Review)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... The Last Days of Dublin Castle: The Diaries of Mark Sturgis. Michael Hopkinson, editor. Irish Academic Press. [pound]27.50/US$39.50. 278 pages. ISBN 0-7165-2626- 3. Mark Sturgis was an English civil servant seconded to Dublin Castle in the...

Victorian Psychology and British Culture 1850-1880.(Review)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... Victorian Psychology and British Culture 1850-1880. Rick Rylance. Oxford University Press. [pound]45.00. 355 pages. ISBN 0-19-812283-7. The author's purpose is to give readers a 'systematic overview of the development of mid-Victorian...

Britain and European Integration 1945-1998: A Documentary History.(Review)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... Britain and European Integration 1945-1998: A Documentary History. David Gowland and Arthur Turner, editors. Routledge. [pound]55.99. 252 pages. ISBN 0-415-17974-2. The editors have arranged their selection of documents in a broadly...

The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde.(Review)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde. Volume 1: Poems and Poems in Prose. Bobby Fong and Karl Beckson, editors. Oxford University Press. [pound]60.00. 333 pages. ISBN 0-19-811960-7. This new publishing venture, which will include the complete...

Madame de Pompadour: Sex, Culture and Power.(Review)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... Madame de Pompadour: Sex, Culture and Power. Margaret Crosland. Sutton Publishing. [pound]19.99/US$29.95. 186 pages. ISBN 0-7509-2338-5. Madame de Pompadour's name has become synonymous with court mistresses and French elegance - frills, ruffs...

The Cambridge Urban History of Britain.(Review)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... The Cambridge Urban History of Britain. Volume I 600-1540. D. M. Palliser, editor. Cambridge University Press. [pound]90.00/US$140.00. 841 pages. ISBN 0521-44461-6. As the editor writes, 'the history of British towns is a very distinctive one...

Human Nature after Darwin: A Philosophical Introduction.(Review)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... Human Nature after Darwin: A Philosophical Introduction. Janet Radcliffe Richards. Routledge. [pound]40.00. 313 pages. ISBN 0-415-21243-X. This book, by a teacher in the Open University, is a contribution to the current Darwinian debate, 'whose...

Doing Business with the Nazis: Britain's Economic and Financial Relations with Germany 1931-1939.(Review)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... Doing Business with the Nazis: Britain's Economic and Financial Relations with Germany 1931-1939. Neil Forbes. Frank Cass. [pound]35.00/US$49.50. 250 pages. ISBN 0-7146-5101-X. Britain and Germany, while economic rivals since the end of the...

The House Beautiful: Oscar Wilde and the Aesthetic Interior.(Review)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... The House Beautiful: Oscar Wilde and the Aesthetic Interior. Charlotte Gere with Lesley Hoskins. Lund Humphries. [pound]29.95. 144 pages. ISBN 0-85331-818-2. This book evaluates the influence Oscar Wilde had on the style of the domestic...

Changing Stages: A View of British Theatre in the Twentieth Century.(Review)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... Changing Stages: A View of British Theatre in the Twentieth Century. Richard Eyre and Nicholas Wright. Bloomsbury. [pound]30.00. 400 pages. ISBN 0-7475-4789-0. The two great strengths of the British theatre have been its insularity and the...

From War to Peace: Altered Strategic Landscapes in the Twentieth Century.(Review)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2001... From War to Peace: Altered Strategic Landscapes in the Twentieth Century. Paul Kennedy and William I. Hitchcock, editors. Yale University Press. [pound]19.95. 325 pages. ISBN 0-300-08010-7. The eleven essays in this collection began their lives...