Contemporary Review articles from March 2005

Contemporary Review archives from March 2005

Musharraf's administration and Pakistan's economy.
March 1, 2005... PAKISTANIS have much to smile about today. Economic growth is up, according to the conventional economic indicators. This good news comes after a dismal period of more than a decade, especially in the commodity-producing sector. Exports have...

After the tsunami: the politics of international relief.
March 1, 2005... THE Ring of Fire erupted on 26 December 2004. It created one of the greatest humanitarian crises in modern history. The Ring of Fire is the area around the Pacific Ocean where tectonic plates intersect and volcanoes erupt. It begins in the...

The unbreakable mould? British third-party politics since 1924.
March 1, 2005... IT is necessary to understand the role of a third force in British politics over the last century in order to see why the Liberal Democrats may be poised for a significant electoral breakthrough in the next general election which most observers...

Reflections of a Romanian student.
March 1, 2005... WHEN I pass by shining shop-windows in the big English city where I study now, I still can't help staring at those nice leather shoes so carefully made, so elegant. I'm not a consumerist individual trapped in the Kingdom of Objects, no matter...

The two faces of tourism: why do Canadians travel abroad?
March 1, 2005... Editor's Note: In last month's issue the author appraised Canada as a tourist destination, now he explores why millions of Canadians travel abroad. I WILL not forget the time when I was travelling in Cuba, a few years back, after the USSR...

Boucher at the Wallace Collection.
March 1, 2005... THE Director of the Wallace Collection, London, who has a passion for rearranging its contents, has moved the pictures by Francois Boucher (1703-1770) into the Large Gallery to form (with changing displays far off in the new exhibition corridor...

Dramatic revelations: the science of art.
March 1, 2005... THE search is on for a theory of everything. Scientists are on a quest to unify the little and large of theoretical physics: the microcosm of the sub-atomic world and the macrocosm of Einstein's universe. The prize is a total explanation for...

Jean-Claude Killy: France's king of the ski slopes.
March 1, 2005... JEAN-CLAUDE Killy always did things right. Having turned 61 last August, this ex-skier supreme is still much alive, if not on the slopes. He is Val d'Isere's unofficial king, and has been a driving force behind that ski resort's designation for...

Arthur Schlesinger on the Bush presidency.(War and the American Presidency)(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... War and the American Presidency. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jnr. W.W. Norton. [pounds sterling]16.99. xvi + 160 pages. ISBN 0-393-06002-0. Like his contemporary, John Kenneth Galbraith, Arthur Schlesinger has been an incisive commentator on the...

Baroness Kennedy and the law.(Just Law)(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... Just Law. Helena Kennedy. Chatto and Windus. [pounds sterling]20.00. xi + 333 pages. ISBN 0-701-7506-0. Think of a leading woman QC, firm-minded, clear of thought and speech, prominent in Left-wing cases and causes--and a high earner: no,...

Roy Jenkins by his admirers.(Roy Jenkins: A Retrospective)(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... Roy Jenkins: A Retrospective. Andrew Adonis and Keith Thomas, editors. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]17.99. xviii + 353 pages. ISBN 0-19-927487-8. At one time Roy Jenkins would have been added to the long list of highly...

The British media in crisis.(My Trade. A Short History of British Journalism)(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... My Trade. A Short History of British Journalism. Andrew Marr. Macmillan. [pounds sterling]20.00. xxiv + 391 pages. ISBN 1-4050-0536-X. Few organisations can claim the same worldwide respect and affection as that enjoyed by the BBC. Those...

A controversial history of South Africa.(South Africa: The First Man, The Last Nation)(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... South Africa: The First Man, The Last Nation. R.W. Johnson. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. [pounds sterling]16.99. xxviii + 244 pages. ISBN 0-297-64672-9. Historians are more popular than ever. The television schedules show it. So do the queues at...

El Alamein revisited.(Pendulum of War: The Three Battles of el Alamein)(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... Pendulum of War: The Three Battles of el Alamein. Niall Barr. Jonathan Cape. [pounds sterling]20.00. xliii + 531 pages. ISBN 0-224-06195-X. This book gives an account of four months from retreat and rout to a victory of terrible cost....

The history of smallpox.(The Life and Death of Smallpox)(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... The Life and Death of Smallpox. Ian and Jenifer Glynn. Profile Books. [pounds sterling]17.99. x + 278 pages. ISBN 1-86197-608-9. The story of smallpox is an old one and some nasty, pox-like things wander through Thucydides, Diodorus and...

Scotland in the middle ages.(Medieval Scotland: Kingship and Nation)(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... Medieval Scotland: Kingship and Nation. Alan Macquarrie. Sutton Publishing, [pounds sterling]25.00. 242 pages. ISBN 0-7509-2977-4. Alan Macquarrie is a Scots historian, now a research associate in the history school at Strathclyde...

The world of paperbacks.
March 1, 2005... After a long hiatus this column is delighted to include once again new titles from the venerable firm of GERALD DUCKWORTH & CO. Duckworth is republishing the two volumes of Jean Moorcroft Wilson's biography of Siegfried Sassoon: Siegfried...

The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. Elizabeth Knowles, managing editor. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]30.00. xxvii + 1140 pages. ISBN 0-19-860720-2. This venerable title is, with its sixth edition, now in its sixty-fourth year....

Supreme Courage: Heroic Stories from 150 Years of the Victoria Cross.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... Supreme Courage: Heroic Stories from 150 Years of the Victoria Cross. Peter de la Billiere. Little, Brown. [pounds sterling]20.00. viii + 387 pages. ISBN 0-316-72591-9. Of the various books published to celebrate 150 years of the Victoria...

Conspicuous Compassion: Why Sometimes It Really is Cruel to be Kind.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... Conspicuous Compassion: Why Sometimes It Really is Cruel to be Kind. Patrick West. Civitas. [pounds sterling]7.50. viii + 79 pages. ISBN 1-903-386-34-9. Civitas, the Institute for the Study of Civil Society, is famous for its publications which...

The Edwardians.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... The Edwardians. Roy Hattersley. Little, Brown. [pounds sterling]25.00. vii + 520 pages. ISBN 0-316-72537-4. The MP turned historian sees the period between Victoria's death and the outbreak of WWI as 'a watershed in British history... when a...

The Last of the Celts.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... The Last of the Celts. Marcus Tanner. Yale University Press. [pounds sterling]25.00. vii + 398 pages. ISBN 0-300-10464-2. This title, by the former assistant Foreign Editor of The Independent newspaper, is concerned with 'the disappearance of...

Blood & Roses: The Paston Family in the Fifteenth Century.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... Blood & Roses: The Paston Family in the Fifteenth Century. Helen Castor. Faber and Faber. [pounds sterling]20.00. xvii + 347 pages. ISBN 0-571-21670-6. Since their first publication in 1787, the letters of the Paston family have been our best...

The Imperial War Museum Book of 1914: The Men Who Went to War.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... The Imperial War Museum Book of 1914: The Men Who Went to War. Malcolm Brown. Sidgwick & Jackson. [pounds sterling]20.00. xxviii + 337 pages. ISBN 0-283-07323-3. This is Mr Brown's seventh (and apparently last) book issued under the auspices of...

The Coffee-House: A Cultural History.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... The Coffee House: A Cultural History. Markman Ellis. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. [pounds sterling]18.99. xiv + 304 pages. ISBN 0-297-84319-2. This title is concerned with the heyday of the coffee-houses in the eighteenth century when they fulfilled...

The Atterbury Plot.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... The Atterbury Plot. Eveline Cruickshanks and Howard Erskine-Hill. Palgrave Macmillan. [pounds sterling]60.00. xi + 312 pages. ISBN 0-333-58668-9. The authors look again at the role of Bishop Atterbury in bringing about a Stuart restoration....

The Voice of War: The Second World War Told by Those Who Fought It.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... The Voice of War: The Second World War Told by Those Who Fought It. James Owen and Guy Walters, editors. Viking. [pounds sterling]20.00. xx + 628 pages. ISBN 0-670-91423-1. The editors' intention is to present the 'immediacy of experience' as...

Charles V: The World Emperor.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... Charles V: The World Emperor. Harald Kleinschmidt. Sutton Publishing. [pounds sterling]20.00. xix + 296 pages. ISBN 0-7509-24040-7. Charles V was perhaps the most famous Holy Roman Emperor after Charlemagne and was elected Emperor in 1519. In...

Witch Craze: Terror and Fantasy in Baroque Germany.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... Witch Craze: Terror and Fantasy in Baroque Germany. Lyndal Roper. Yale University Press. [pounds sterling]25.00. xiv + 362 pages. ISBN 0-300-10335-2. This is a book of discovery which seeks to understand how people denounced friends as witches...

The Cambridge Companion to Mendelssohn.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... The Cambridge Companion to Mendelssohn. Peter Mercer-Taylor, editor. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]50.00. xv + 315 pages. ISBN 0-521-53342-2. This latest number in the Cambridge Companion to Music series contains essays by...

Stradivarius: One Cello, Five Violins and a Genius.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... Stradivarius: One Cello, Five Violins and a Genius. Toby Faber. Macmillan. [pounds sterling]16.99. xviii + 295 pages. ISBN 0-333-98976-7. Antonio Stradivari's string instruments (he made about 1000 of which some 600 survive) are not just...

Wordsworth and Coleridge: Lyrical Ballads.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... Wordsworth and Coleridge: Lyrical Ballads. John Blades. Palgrave-Macmillan. [pounds sterling]12.99 p.b. xii + 291 pages. ISBN 1-4039-0480-4. This new title in Palgrave's 'Analysing Texts' series is devoted to the Lyrical Ballads. The text is...

The British Seaborne Empire.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... The British Seaborne Empire. Jeremy Black. Yale University Press. [pounds sterling]25.00. xii + 420 pages. ISBN 0-300-10386-7. This latest evidence of the upsurge in writing on Britain's naval history and her Empire looks at the 'maritime...

Making Friends with Hitler: Lord Londonderry and Britain's Road to War.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... Making Friends with Hitler: Lord Londonderry and Britain's Road to War. Ian Kershaw. Allen Lane. [pounds sterling]20.00. xix + 488 pages. ISBN 0-713-99717-6. Prof. Kershaw was given special access to the Londonderry manuscripts for this book in...

The Cambridge Companion to Nathaniel Hawthorne.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... The Cambridge Companion to Nathaniel Hawthorne. Richard H. Millington, editor. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]45.00 (US$65.00). xviii + 285 pages. ISBN 0-521-00204-4. Hawthorne remains one of the most popular of America's...

Pol Pot: The History of a Nightmare.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... Pol Pot: The History of a Nightmare. Philip Short. John Murray. [pounds sterling]25.00. xvi + 656 pages. ISBN 0-7195-6568-5. The author, for many years a foreign correspondent for the BBC, has had the benefit of talking to many of the leading...

The Gardens of Emily Dickinson.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... The Gardens of Emily Dickinson. Judith Farr with Louise Carter. Harvard University Press. [pounds sterling]17.95. xvi + 351 pages. ISBN 0-674-01293-3. In this delightful book, Prof. Farr, author of The Passion of Emily Dickinson, and Louise...

Trafalgar: The Biography of a Battle.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... Trafalgar: The Biography of a Battle. Roy Adkins. Little, Brown. [pounds sterling]20.00. xxiii + 392 pages. ISBN 0-316-72511-0. This book aims at giving the 'true story' of the battle of Trafalgar in the words of people who had taken part or at...

Margot Fonteyn.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... Margot Fonteyn. Meredith Daneman. Viking. [pounds sterling]20.00. xvi + 654 pages. ISBN 0-670-91337-5. Dame Margot Fonteyn, nee Margaret Hookham, remains Britain's greatest dancer. Her career paralleled that of Sadler Wells Ballet, later the...

Water: A Turbulent History.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... Water: A Turbulent History. Stephen Halliday. Sutton Publishing. [pounds sterling]20.00. x + 246 pages. ISBN 0-7509-3300-3. The author, who has already written admirably about the work of Sir Joseph Bazalgette in cleaning up London's water...

The Enemies of Rome: From Hannibal to Attila the Hun.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... The Enemies of Rome: From Hannibal to Attila the Hun. Philip Matyszak. Thames & Hudson., [pounds sterling]18.95. 296 pages. ISBN 0-500-25124-X. This survey begins in 215 BC when Hannibal invaded Italy and ends with the invasion of Attila. In...

Ypres: The First Battle, 1914.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... Ypres: The First Battle, 1914. Ian F.W. Beckett. Longman. [pounds sterling]19.99. xx + 221 pages. ISBN 0-582-50612-3. In this first re-examination of the first Battle of Ypres since 1967, Prof. Beckett looks at the battle which marked the end...

The British Government and the City of London in the Twentieth Century.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... The British Government and the City of London in the Twentieth Century. Ranald Michie and Philip Williamson, editors. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]60.00 (US $100.00). xii + 381 pages. ISBN 0-521-82769-8. These seventeen essays...

Invasion! Operation Sealion, 1940.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... Invasion! Operation Sealion, 1940. Martin Marix Evans. Longman. [pounds sterling]19.99. xiv + 277 pages. ISBN 0-582-77294-X. This book is a combination of history (a survey of the war from the invasion of Poland to the Battle of Britain and the...

The Whole Hog: Exploring the Extraordinary Potential of Pigs.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... The Whole Hog: Exploring the Extraordinary Potential of Pigs. Lyall Watson. Profile Books. [pounds sterling]16.99. ix + 278 pages. ISBN 1-86197-736-0. Pigs have been and are important in human life. This intriguing book 'is a personal inquiry,...

The Life of Graham Greene. Volume Three: 1955-1991.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... The Life of Graham Greene. Volume Three: 1955-1991. Norman Sherry. Jonathan Cape. [pounds sterling]25.00. xxxiii + 906 pages. ISBN 0-224-05974-2. This exhaustive, and sometimes exhausting third volume brings Prof. Sherry's massive authorised...

Forgotten Voices of the Second World War.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2005... Forgotten Voices of the Second World War. Max Arthur. Ebury Press. [pounds sterling]19.99. x + 486 pages. ISBN 0091897343. This collection, produced in association with the Imperial War Museum, is a sequel to the author's highly successful,...