Contemporary Review articles from March 2008

Contemporary Review archives from March 2008

Germany's family policies.(Essay)
March 22, 2008... BEFORE the coalition government of Christian and Social Democrats came into power in Germany (see Contemporary Review, November 2005), the lines of argument were predictable. In public and political discourse, there were two rival concepts...

The new Australian Government.(Essay)
March 22, 2008... THE November 24, 2007 election of Kevin Rudd's Australian Labor Party was a great surprise to most people. Those who were hoping for a Labor victory could not believe the extent of the victory over the Liberal Party. Even the Prime Minister,...

Why America cannot ignore soft power.(Essay)
March 22, 2008... AS the world's sole superpower with almost unrivalled economic and military dominance, the United States must make critical choices about the forms of power it employs to achieve its foreign policy objectives. Many foreign policy experts...

Belgium's survival as a nation.(Essay)
March 22, 2008... ONE of the most famous works of the great Belgian painter Rene Magritte looks like a clear representation of a pipe and bears the title Ceci n'est pas une pipe. Nowadays Belgium is full of black, gold and red flags hanging from windows as if it...

Organising informal workers in South Africa.(Essay)
March 22, 2008... POVERTY and unemployment are the indivisible effects of processes of marginalisation and exclusion throughout the world. They are symptoms of an unequal distribution of resources both within countries and between nations. While this is not a...

More houses in England's green and pleasant land.(Essay)
March 22, 2008... Editor's Note: It is a frequently forgotten fact that all forms of social structures ultimately rest on the ownership and use of land. The next two articles look at the history and current attitudes towards land in Britain and the United...

Americans and their land: the deep roots of property and liberty.(Essay)
March 22, 2008... AFTER World War II Carl and Mae Shockley owned a farm along the Current River in Carter County, Missouri. The river bottom territory is the best agricultural land in this rocky Ozark area. Before the 1970s, by dint of tremendous work, they...

Losing sleep in Romania.(Essay)
March 22, 2008... EACH morning for the past few months since my return to Romania, I am awakened by what can be best described as the halting, penetrating sounds of European expansion. Beyond my sixth floor balcony in the Transylvanian city of Cluj-Napoca,...

Devil fervour: conspiracy theories, Ground Zero and the religion of the dispossessed.
March 22, 2008... ON September 11th 2006, there was a brawl at Ground Zero. Despite the ubiquitous presence of the press, this was ignored even by the New York newspapers. This fighting, which I personally witnessed, was sparked by a middle-aged,...

Coping with the persecution of the Roma in Slovakia.
March 22, 2008... SLOVAKIA'S Constitutional Court has instructed a regional judiciary authority to compensate three young Roma women for their loss caused by coerced sterilization conducted for reasons of their race. The issue concerns a practice still...

Black sheep, white sheep: the Swiss and Immigration.(on Switzerland's immigration policy)
March 22, 2008... SWITZERLAND has traditionally been a sanctuary for refugees from the world's trouble spots, which in the last few decades have included Afghanistan, Cambodia, Chile, Eastern Europe, Lebanon, Sri Lanka, Tibet, Turkey, the former Yugoslavia and...

From cattle to crops in Ethiopia.
March 22, 2008... GUYATE Burka needed some convincing that there was any point in sending children to school. The 65-year-old admits that none of her older children, all now married, ever attended school. Like other Boran pastoral women from Siminto Kebele in...

Zimbabwe's educated exiles.(Decade overview)
March 22, 2008... Editor's Note: The names of all the students mentioned in the article have been changed to ones conveying the same ethnic background. I lived in Zimbabwe from 1995 to 1997. At the time it was a country that functioned. It was not a real...

Ukraine's unstable alliances.(Essay)
March 22, 2008... 'SO they've finished arguing over who will be in the new government', an elderly woman in Kiev told me with a shrug; 'Now the real fighting will begin'. Although the new coalition government looked different from its predecessor, with the...

Watteau in London and Paris.(Antoine Watteau's collection of paintings)
March 22, 2008... IT is a tribute to the French painter, Antoine Watteau, that there are more of his works in public collections in London than in Paris: fourteen in London, twelve in Paris. There would be seven fewer in Paris had it not been for the patriotism...

Enountering the philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadamer.(Essay)
March 22, 2008... IN 1968, when Gadamer became Emeritus, I was contemplating my first undergraduate year. Hans-Georg Gadamer was a German philosopher whose life (1900-2002) encompassed the whole twentieth century. He is best remembered for his important book...

In defence of painting.(Essay)
March 22, 2008... NOT so long ago I attended a lecture given by one of this country's leading art commentators. Essentially the purpose of the lecture was to defend from various forms of popular criticism and ridicule the current practice of contemporary visual...

The truth about Ulster's Orangemen.(The Orange Order: A Contemporary Northern Irish History)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... The Orange Order: A Contemporary Northern Irish History. Eric P. Kaufmann. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]30.00. xv + 373 pages. ISBN 978-0-19-920848-7. Unionism and Orangeism in Northern Ireland Since 1945: The Decline of the Loyal...

Censorship in today's Britain.(Freedom's Frontier: Censorship in Modern Britain)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Freedom's Frontier: Censorship in Modern Britain. Donald Thomas. John Murray. [pounds sterling]30.00. xv + 400 pages. ISBN 978-0-7195-5733-0. Tom Stoppard's last stage play, Rock 'n' Roll, premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in...

The Blairs of Downing Street.(The Darlings of Downing Street: The Psychosexual Drama of Power)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... The Darlings of Downing Street: The Psychosexual Drama of Power. Garry O'Connor. Politico's. [pounds sterling]18.99. xv + 351 pages. ISBN 978-1-84275-202-9. This is politics as performance art, politics as soap opera or situation comedy,...

Town and country planning put to the test.(Saved: How an English Village Fought for Its Survival ... and Won)(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Saved: How an English Village Fought for Its Survival... and Won. David Hewson. Matador. [pounds sterling]8.99 p.b. xii + 228 pages. ISBN 978-1-905886-776-0. This interesting and lively little book tells the story of a public relations...

Michael Foot--the intellectual in politics.(Michael Foot: A Life)(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Michael Foot: A Life. Kenneth O. Morgan. HarperCollins. [pounds sterling]25.00. xix + 568 pages. ISBN 978-0-00-717826-1. One wonders what the future of the heavyweight biography will be, especially one dealing with someone who, although...

Truman, Potsdam and the Cold War.(From Roosevelt to Truman: Potsdam, Hiroshima, and the Cold War)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... From Roosevelt to Truman: Potsdam, Hiroshima, and the Cold War. Wilson D. Miscamble, C.S.C. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]30.00. (US$39.00). xx + 393 pages. ISBN 978-0-521-86244-8. The question of who started the Cold War has...

Christian Europe and the Muslim threat.(God's Continent: Christianity, Islam, and Europe's Religious Crisis)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... God's Continent: Christianity, Islam, and Europe's Religious Crisis. Philip Jenkins. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]16.99. xi + 340 pages. ISBN 978-0-19-531395-6. In 1683, the Islamic forces threatening Vienna, and therefore...

An inside view of life in Afghanistan.(The Sleeping Buddha: The Story of Afghanistan through the Eyes of One Family)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... The Sleeping Buddha: The Story of Afghanistan through the Eyes of One Family. Hamida Ghafour. Constable. [pounds sterling]8.99 p.b. xv + 336 pages. ISBN 978-1-84529-313-0. Hamida Ghafour is an Afghan-born journalist whose family fled Kabul...

How famous writers write.(The Way We Write: Interviews with Award-Winning Writers)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... The Way We Write: Interviews with Award-Winning Writers. Barbara Baker, editor. Continuum. [pounds sterling]9.99 p.b. xv + 234 pages. ISBN 978-0-8264-9505-1. Barbara Baker is working here in a long tradition of an extremely useful...

The world of paperbacks.(booklist)(Buyers guide)
March 22, 2008... VINTAGE BOOKS have brought out a cornucopia of new biographical and historical titles. On the biographical side we have The Life of Kingsley Amis ([pounds sterling]11.99) by Prof. Zachary Leader which was highly praised on its hardback...

Bomber Boys: Fighting Back 1940-1945.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Bomber Boys: Fighting Back 1940-1945. Patrick Bishop. HarperPress. [pounds sterling]20.00. xli + 429 pages. ISBN 978-0-00-718986-1. This history, devoted to the pilots who flew in Bomber Command, is the sequel to the author's Fighter Boys which...

Dickens and the Popular Radical Imagination.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Dickens and the Popular Radical Imagination. Sally Ledger. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]50.00 (US$90.00). xiii + 295 pages. ISBN 978-0-521-84577-9. This book sets out to reveal the debts Dickens owed to the populist radical...

White City.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... White City. Donald James Wheal. Century. [pounds sterling]12.99. viii + 323 pages. ISBN 978-1-84-605085-5. This volume of memoirs is a continuation of the author's earlier volume, World's End. It starts in 1944 when Mr Wheal's family was bombed...

Stanley: The Impossible Life of Africa's Greatest Explorer.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Stanley: The Impossible Life of Africa's Greatest Explorer. Tim Jeal. Faber and Faber. [pounds sterling]25.00. xix + 570 pages. ISBN 978-0-571-22102-8. Biographers often claim to have uncovered the 'real' person behind the legend but in this...

The Offbeat Radicals: The British Tradition of Alternative Dissent.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... The Offbeat Radicals: The British Tradition of Alternative Dissent. Geoffrey Ashe. Methuen. [pounds sterling]17.99. xiii + 274 pages. ISBN 978-0-413-77460-6. This is a study of those people, from the Romantics to Chesterton who advocated...

British Diplomacy: Foreign Secretaries Reflect.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... British Diplomacy: Foreign Secretaries Reflect. Graham Ziegner, editor. Politico's. [pounds sterling]19.99. ix + 165 pages. ISBN 978-1-84275-163-3. This collection is based on a series of talks given in 2003 at the L.S.E. by five men who were...

City of the Sharp-Nosed Fish: Greek Lives in Roman Egypt.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... City of the Sharp-Nosed Fish: Greek Lives in Roman Egypt. Peter Parsons. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. [pounds sterling]20.00. xxx + 258 pages. ISBN 978-0-297-64588-7. Prof Parsons' concern here is with the life of those Greek settlements established...

Panama Fever: The Battle to Build the Canal.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Panama Fever: The Battle to Build the Canal. Matthew Parker. Hutchinson. [pounds sterling]20.00. xix + 444 pages. ISBN 978-0-091-79704-1. No one doubts that the building of the Panama Canal was a tremendous engineering achievement. However Mr...

Plutocrats: A Rothschild Inheritance.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Plutocrats: A Rothschild Inheritance. George Ireland. John Murray. [pounds sterling]30.00. xiii + 432 pages. ISBN 978-0-7195-6153-5. This biography of the four sons of Nathan Rothschild, born to an English mother and brought up in England, may...

That Neutral Island: A Cultural History of Ireland during the Second World War.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... That Neutral Island: A Cultural History of Ireland during the Second World War. Clair Wills. Faber and Faber. [pounds sterling]25.00. ix + 502 pages. ISBN 978-0-571-22105-9. The political history of the Republic during the Second World War has...

Lloyd George and Churchill: Rivals for Greatness.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Lloyd George and Churchill: Rivals for Greatness. Richard Toye. Macmillan. [pounds sterling]25.00. viii + 504 pages. ISBN 978-1-4050-4896-4. To many contemporaries 'L-G' and Churchill were, at least in their earlier years, regarded as...

Digging Up The Dead: The Life and Times of Astley Cooper, an Extraordinary Surgeon.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Digging Up The Dead: The Life and Times of Astley Cooper, an Extraordinary Surgeon. Druin Burch. Chatto & Windus. [pounds sterling]20.00. xii + 276 pages. ISBN 978-0-701-17985-4. Astley Cooper (1768-1841), later Sir Astley Cooper, Bt., was one...

This Mighty Scourge: Perspectives on the Civil War.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... This Mighty Scourge: Perspectives on the Civil War. James M. McPherson. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]16.99. xii + 260 pages. ISBN 978-0-19-531366-6. Prof. McPherson takes another look, as historians are wont to do, at the War...

The Politics of Englishness.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... The Politics of Englishness. Arthur Aughey. Manchester University Press. [pounds sterling]55.00. viii + 256 pages. ISBN 978-0-7190-6872-0. This study is a by-product of that type of academic whose life seems to be governed by the new religion...

Savage Kingdom: Virginia and the Founding of English.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Savage Kingdom: Virginia and the Founding of English. Benjamin Woolley. [pounds sterling]25.00. HarperPress. ix + 467 pages. ISBN 978-0-00-713169-3. Mr Woolley is keen to place the history of Virginia's founding in the context not just of...

Perfect Hostage: A Life of Aung San Suu Kyi.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Perfect Hostage: A Life of Aung San Suu Kyi. Justin Wintle. Hutchinson. [pounds sterling]18.99. xxix + 450 pages. ISBN 978-0-091-79651-8. Since 1988, when Aug San Suu Kyi began her protest at military rule, she has been the most famous...

Remembered: The History of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Remembered: The History of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Julie Summers. Merrell. [pounds sterling]29.95. 192 pages. ISBN 978-1-8589-4374-9. Last year marked the 90th anniversary of the Imperial (after 1960, Commonwealth) War Graves...

Oil Paintings in Public Ownership in the Government Art Collection.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Oil Paintings in Public Ownership in the Government Art Collection. The Public Catalogue Foundation. [pounds sterling]35.00. xiv + 363 pages. ISBN 1-904931-42-1. It is a truism that governments and civil servants look after themselves to a high...

Dr Livingstone, I Presume? Missionaries, Journalists, Explorers and Empire.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Dr Livingstone, I Presume? Missionaries, Journalists, Explorers and Empire. Claire Pettitt. Profile Books. [pounds sterling]15.99. x + 244 pages. ISBN 978-1-86197-728-1. To a large degree the Victorians created heroes and we demolish them. The...

George III: America's Last King.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... George III: America's Last King. Jeremy Black. Yale University Press. [pounds sterling]25.00. xvi + 475 pages. ISBN 978-0-300-11732-5. This latest biographical study is largely concerned with Catholic 'emancipation' and the American rebellion...

By Hook Or By Crook: A Journey in Search of English.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... By Hook Or By Crook: A Journey in Search of English. David Crystal. Harper Collins. [pounds sterling]16.99. xv + 314 pages. ISBN 978-0-00-723558-2. Between 2002 and 2005 David Crystal acted as linguistics consultant to a BBC series called...

Borrowed Time: The Story of Britain between the Wars.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Borrowed Time: The Story of Britain Between the Wars. Roy Hattersley. Little, Brown. [pounds sterling]20.00. 454 pages. ISBN 978-0-316-73032-7. This history by Lord Hattersley, a minister in the Wilson and Callaghan Labour governments, covers...

The Queen's Knight: The Extraordinary Life of Queen Victoria's Most Trusted Confidant.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... The Queen's Knight: The Extraordinary Life of Queen Victoria's Most Trusted Confidant. Martyn Downer. Bantam Press. [pounds sterling]25.00. xii + 452 pages. ISBN 978-0-593-05485-7. This is the author's first biography of someone attached to...

Decency and Disorder: The Age of Cant 1789-1837.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Decency and Disorder: The Age of Cant 1789-1837. Ben Wilson. Faber and Faber. [pounds sterling]25.00. xxxiii + 510 pages. ISBN 978-0-571-22468-5. This study sets out to re-examine the transformation of English society from the robustness and...

Perth and Kinross.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Perth and Kinross. John Gifford. Yale University Press. [pounds sterling]29.95. xvii + 802 pages. ISBN 978-0-300-10922-1. This is the tenth volume in The Buildings of Scotland series and covers what was the county of Perth-shire in central...

Forgotten Voices of the Falklands.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Forgotten Voices of the Falklands. Hugh McManners. Ebury Press. [pounds sterling] 19.99. xvi + 479 pages. ISBN 978-0-09-190880-5. This book is produced in association with the Imperial War Museum and is part of the 'Forgotten Voices' series in...

Locke: A Biography.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Locke: A Biography. Roger Woolhouse. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]25.00 (US$39.99). xxx + 528 pages. ISBN 978-0-521-81786-8. Locke remains, arguably, the single most important political philosopher England has produced and with...

After the Reich: From the Liberation of Vienna to the Berlin Airlift.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... After the Reich: From the Liberation of Vienna to the Berlin Airlift. Giles MacDonogh. John Murray. [pounds sterling]25.00. xxi + 618 pages. ISBN 978-0-7195-6770-4. Mr MacDonogh is concerned with the plight of Germans and Austrians in the wake...

Medievalism: The Middle Ages in Modern England.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Medievalism: The Middle Ages in Modern England. Michael Alexander. Yale University Press. [pounds sterling]25.00. xxviii + 306 pages. ISBN 978-0-300-11061-6. Prof. Alexander's remit here is far wider than just the Victorian devotion to...

Leni: the Life and Work of Leni Riefenstahl.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Leni: the Life and Work of Leni Riefenstahl. Steven Bach. Little, Brown. [pounds sterling]25.00. x + 386 pages. ISBN 978-0-316-86111-3. This biography, first published in the US, is of one of the most controversial of the survivors of Hitler's...

The Origin of the Welfare State in England and Germany, 1850-1914: Social Policies Compared.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... The Origin of the Welfare State in England and Germany, 1850-1914: Social Policies Compared. E.P. Hennock. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]55.00 (US$99.00). xvii + 381 pages. ISBN 978-0-521-59770-8. By 1914, both the UK and Germany...

The Discovery of France.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... The Discovery of France. Graham Robb. Picador. [pounds sterling]18.99. xvii + 455 pages. ISBN 978-0-330-42760-9. To 'discover' a neighbour of long acquaintance is to find out things one did not know. The author is well read in French history,...

Imperial Citizenship: Empire and the Question of Belonging.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Imperial Citizenship: Empire and the Question of Belonging. Daniel Gorman. Manchester University Press. [pounds sterling]50.00. xi + 243 pages. ISBN 978-0-7190-7529-7. In this study Mr Gorman examines the writings of five men who looked at the...

Elgar: An Anniversary Portrait.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Elgar: An Anniversary Portrait. Continuum. [pounds sterling]16.99. x + 199 pages. ISBN 978-0-8264-9696-6. In his brief introduction Nicholas Kenyon defines Elgar as the 'first great English internationalist, whose open-ear'd, open-minded, truly...

The King's Glass: A Story of Tudor Power and Secret Art.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... The King's Glass: A Story of Tudor Power and Secret Art. Carola Hicks. Chatto & Windus. [pounds sterling]18.99. ix + 246 pages. ISBN 978-0-701-17992-2. The author is an art historian who may be said to specialise in mediaeval glass. Here she is...

Prisoner of War: Voices from Captivity during the Second World War.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Prisoner of War: Voices from Captivity during the Second World War. Charles Rollings. Ebury Press. [pounds sterling]19.99. vii + 392 pages. ISBN 978-0-09-191007-5. Almost 500,000 Allied servicemen became POWs. As such their enemies were...

Essex.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Essex. James Bettley and Nikolaus Pevsner et al. Yale University Press. [pounds sterling]29.95. xx + 939 pages. ISBN 978-0-300-11614-4. This addition to the Buildings of England series reminds us that Essex is much more than the backyard of...

Out of the Storm: The Life and Legacy of Martin Luther.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Out of the Storm: The Life and Legacy of Martin Luther. Derek Wilson. Hutchinson. [pounds sterling]20.00. xv + 399 pages. ISBN 978-0-09-180001-7. The author sees Luther as 'one of those rare individuals who single-handedly forced the march of...

Comrades: A World History of Communism.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Comrades: A World History of Communism. Robert Service. Macmillan. [pounds sterling]25.00. xviii + 571 pages. ISBN 978-1-4050-5345-7. Survey histories of this breadth are always dangerous things to attempt. When tackled by any hands other than...

Pompeii Awakened: A Story of Rediscovery.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Pompeii Awakened: A Story of Rediscovery. Judith Harris. I.B. Tauris. [pounds sterling]18.99. xi + 308 pages. ISBN 978-1-84511-241-7. The only thing that excels the history of Pompeii is the history of its rediscovery. As the author writes, the...

Lawrence of Arabia: Mirage of a Desert War.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Lawrence of Arabia: Mirage of a Desert War. Adrian Greaves. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. [pounds sterling]20.00. xi + 260 pages. ISBN 978-0-297-84656-7. The difficulty with 'Lawrence of Arabia' is not that he was a man who became a myth but that he...

Hubbub: Filth, Noise & Stench in England, 1600-1770.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Hubbub: Filth, Noise & Stench in England 1600-1770. Emily Cockayne. Yale University Press. [pounds sterling]25.00. xiv + 335 pages. ISBN 978-0-300-11214-6. Dr Cockayne's aim is to describe 'how people were made to feel uncomfortable by other...

Napoleon in Egypt: 'The Greatest Glory'.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Napoleon in Egypt: 'The Greatest Glory'. Paul Strathern. Jonathan Cape. [pounds sterling]20.00. xv + 480 pages. ISBN 978-0-224-07681-4. Mr Strathern has recently turned from science to history and here tackles 'the first great seaborne invasion...

The British Museum Caricatures of the Peoples of the British Isles.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... The British Museum Caricatures of the Peoples of the British Isles. Tim Clayton. The British Museum Press. [pounds sterling]9.99. 96 pages. ISBN 978-0-7141-5056-7. The British Museum's collection of satirical caricatures is unsurpassed--it...

The Proto-Totalitarian State: Punishment and Control in Absolutist Regimes.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... The Proto-Totalitarian State: Punishment and Control in Absolutist Regimes. Dmitry Shlapentokh. Transaction Publishers. [pounds sterling]26.50. vi + 167 pages. ISBN 978-0-7658-0366-5. Prof. Shlapentokh's goal is 'to prove that in some cases...

Robert Peel: A Biography.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Robert Peel: A Biography. Douglas Hurd. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. [pound sterling]25.00. viii + 436 pages. ISBN 978-0-297-84844-8. Sir Robert Peel remains as one of the most important men in recent British history because of his founding of...

Rites of Peace: The Fall of Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Rites of Peace: The Fall of Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna. Adam Zamoyski. HarperPress. [pounds sterling]25.00. xviii + 634 pages. ISBN 978-0-00-719757-6. Mr Zamoyski has already written on Napoleon's disastrous attack on Russia in 1812....

Young Stalin.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Young Stalin. Simon Sebag Montefiore. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. [pounds sterling]25.00. xxviii + 397 pages. ISBN 978-0-297-85068-7. This book follows the author's Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar and traces Stalin's life up to October 1917. His...

The Khyber Pass: A History of Empire and Invasion.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... The Khyber Pass: A History of Empire and Invasion. Paddy Docherty. Faber and Faber. [pounds sterling]17.99. xxiv + 261 pages. ISBN 978-0-571-21977-3. The historic mountainous route is a thirty-mile pass through the White Mountains of northwest...

Garibaldi: Invention of a Hero.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Garibaldi: Invention of a Hero. Lucy Riall. Yale University Press. [pounds sterling]19.99. xiv + 482 pages. ISBN 978-0-300-11212-2. Every radical movement needs a hero and Garibaldi was, like Mussolini later, a natural. He was an extra-ordinary...

Guernica and Total War.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Guernica and Total War. Ian Patterson. Profile Books. [pounds sterling]15.99. vii + 199 pages. ISBN 978-1-86197-764-9. This study, part of the Profiles in History series, is concerned with the German bombing of Guernica. Beyond that was the...

Instruction to Deliver: Tony Blair, Public Services and the Challenge of Achieving Targets.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Instruction to Deliver: Tony Blair, Public Services and the Challenge of Achieving Targets. Michael Barber. Politico's. [pounds sterling]19.99. xiv + 418 pages. ISBN 978-1-84275-210-4. The welfare state teaches people that governments are there...

Russia's Islamic Threat.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Russia's Islamic Threat. Gordon M. Hahn. Yale University Press. [pounds sterling]25.00. xvii + 349 pages. ISBN 978-0-300-12077-6. Western countries face Islamic threats through their idiotic policies of allowing large number of immigrants into...