Contemporary Review articles from May 2000

Contemporary Review archives from May 2000

PUTIN'S RUSSIA: WHAT IS AHEAD?(Review)
May 1, 2000... IN the previous article I questioned the applicability of the popular paradigms in explaining Russia. All of these paradigms take for granted that the liberal experiment in Russia failed and that the country's transformation along the lines of...

CHRISTIAN FORGIVENESS IN NORTHERN IRELAND.
May 1, 2000... THREE key results areas for forgiveness and reconciliation in Northern Ireland are the need to erase the ideology of violence from Irish history, above all, that of the twentieth century; the need to regenerate longstanding areas of severe...

SWEDISH LABOUR LAW AND THE EUROPEAN UNION.
May 1, 2000... WHEN Sweden was going to join the EU, the Swedish Labour Law had to be ad to the rules laid down in the EC-Treaty and several judgements of the European Court of Justice concerning labour relations. Contrary to the Labour Law of continental...

THE EDWARDIAN LITERARY AFTERNOON PART TWO: NOW CAME STILL EVENING ON.
May 1, 2000... IT has in bitter truth to be admitted that a disconcertingly sizeable majority of Edwardian library readers rested content with the romantic scrivenings of Victorian lady writers of the calibre of Mrs. Henry Wood, n[acute{e}], in 1814, Ellen...

HUNTING.
May 1, 2000... Happy the young man who can, for a time, entrust his education in life to an experienced member of the opposite sex. I am fortunate enough to have had two such mentors, both ladies past their prime whose charms were of the maturer kind. One was...

CHARDIN AT THE ROYAL ACADEMY.
May 1, 2000... THE current exhibition at the Royal Academy was arranged last autumn by Pierre Rosenberg of the Acad[acute{e}]mie Francaise, Pr[acute{e}]sident Directeur of the Mus[acute{e}]e du Louvre and the doyen of contemporary experts on Chardin, to...

IMPEACHING THE PRESIDENT.(Review)
May 1, 2000... An Affair of State: The Investigation, Impeachment and Trial of President Clinton. Richard A. Posner. Harvard University Press. [pound]15.50. 276 pages. ISBN 0-674-00080-3. The impeachment of President William Jefferson Clinton was a...

COOL BRITANNIA?(Review)
May 1, 2000... British Culture: An Introduction. David Christopher. Routledge. [pounds]40.00 h.b. and [pounds]12.99 p.b. 223 pages. ISBN 0-415-22053-X (h.b.) and 0-415-14218-0 (p.b). Designed as a basic reader 'for use either at home or in class' and...

IN DEFENCE OF R. D. LAING.(Review)
May 1, 2000... R. D. Laing: A Personal View. Bob Mullan. Duckworth. [pounds]18.95. 232 pages. ISBN 0-7156-2889-5. From the fifties until R. D. Laing's death in 1989, the psychiatrist psychoanalysed, swore, wrote, contradicted himself, antagonised,...

THE CONTRADICTORY DR ROWSE.(Review)
May 1, 2000... A Man of Contradictions: A Life of A. L. Rowse. Richard Ollard. Allen Lane. [pounds]20.00. 368 pages. ISBN 0-7139-9353-7. A. L. Rowse was certainly the 'biggest name' to write for Contemporary Review in recent years and as such his...

A LIFE OF WINIFRED HOLTBY.(Review)
May 1, 2000... The Clear Stream: A Life of Winifred Holtby. Marion Shaw. Virago Press. [pounds]18.99. 335 pages. ISBN 1-86049-537-0. Winifred Holtby is usually remembered as the author of South Riding or as the woman immortalised by Vera Brittain in her...

RICHARD STRAUSS: AN UNHEROIC LIFE.(Review)
May 1, 2000... The Life of Richard Strauss. Bryan Gilliam. Cambridge University Press. [pounds]27.95 (h.b.) and [pounds]9.95 (p.b.). 201 pages. ISBN 0-521-57019-0 (h.b.) and 0-521-57895-7(p.b.). Richard Strauss: An Intimate Portrait. Kurt Wilhelm. Translated...

UNDER THE RED FLAG.(Review)
May 1, 2000... Under The Red Flag: A History of Communism in Britain. Keith Laybourn and Dylan Murphy. Sutton Publishing. [pounds]25.00. 233 pages. ISBN 0-7509-1485-8. The two great evils of the twentieth century were Communism and Fascism, which between...

NEW AND NOTEWORTHY.
May 1, 2000... What may be called the 'festival of remembrance' for the historian and philosopher, Isaiah Berlin, continues into the third year after his death. GRANTA Books have published The First and the Last ([pounds]12.00. 142 pages. ISBN 1-86207-2701)...

The Longman Companion to Britain in the Eighteenth Century 1688-1820.(Review)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2000... The Longman Companion to Britain in the Eighteenth Century 1688-1820. Jeremy Gregory and John Stevenson. Longman. [pounds]55.00 h.b. and [pounds]14.99 p.b. 571 pages. ISBN 0-582-27989-5 (h.b.) and 0-582-27988-7 (p.b.) The Longman Companion...

The Oxford Book of English Verse.(Review)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2000... The Oxford Book of English Verse. Christopher Ricks, editor. Oxford University Press. [pounds]25.00. 690 pages. ISBN 0-19-214182-1. The first Oxford Book of English Verse was published in 1900 under the editorship of Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch...

Hitler: The Policies of Seduction.(Review)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2000... Hitler: The Policies of Seduction. Rainer Zitelmann. Helmut Bogler, translator. London House. [pounds]25.00. 540 pages. ISBN 1-902809-03-3. This latest contribution to the unending debate over Hitler and the responsibility of ordinary Germans...

Bargaining on Europe: Britain and the First Common Market, 1869-1892.(Review)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2000... Bargaining on Europe: Britain and the First Common Market 1869-1892. Peter T. Marsh. Yale University Press. [pounds]22.50. 246 pages. ISBN 0-300-08103-0. One of the few apothegms of any validity from that exploded prophet, Marx, is that...

Irish Nocturnes.(Review)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2000... Irish Nocturnes. Chris Arthur. The Davies Group Publishers, PO Box 440140, Aurora, Colorado, USA, 80044. Email: daviesgroup@msn.com. 255 pages. ISBN 1-888570-40-0. Many of the essays in this collection will be familiar to readers of...

Mozart: A Cultural Biography.(Review)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2000... Mozart: A Cultural Biography. Robert W. Gutman. Secker & Warburg. [pounds]25.00. 839 pages. ISBN 0-436-27496-5. This is undoubtedly the finest biography of the composer available in English. Free from all the pseudo-psychological jargon that...

Between Security and Insecurity.(Review)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2000... Between Security and Insecurity. Ivan Klima. Thames & Hudson. [pounds]6.95 p.b. 88 pages. ISBN 0-500-28158-0. This small volume provides an analysis of the past century and its evils as well as a consideration of our present world by a Czech...

Robert E. Lee: An Album.(Review)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2000... Robert E. Lee: An Album. Emory Thomas. Norton. [pounds]25.00/US$35.00. 135 pages. ISBN 0-393-047784. This is a picture book with a short essay on Lee's life and heroic character based on the author's earlier biography. As in the earlier book,...

Notre-Dame de Paris.(Review)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2000... Notre-Dame de Paris. Alain ErlandeBrandenburg. John Goodman, translator. Abradale Press: Harry N. Abrams. [pounds]22.00/US$75.00. 256 pages. ISBN 0-8109-8179-3. This beautifully illustrated book (262 illustrations of which 138 are in colour) is...

Women's Writing on the First World War.(Review)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2000... Women's Writing on the First World War. Agnes Cardinal, Dorothy Goldman and Judith Hathaway. Oxford University Press. [pounds]25.00. 374 pages. ISBN 0-19-812280-2. One of the greatest by-products of the Great War were the volumes of books,...

Whitehall Palace: An Architectural History of the Royal Apartments, 1240-1690.(Review)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2000... Whitehall Palace: An Architectural History of the Royal Apartments, 1240-1690. Simon Thurley. Yale University Press. [pounds]50.00. 185 pages. ISBN 0-300-07639-8. Whitehall Palace now survives in its famous Banqueting Hall, the backdrop for...

Eleanor of Aquitaine: By the Wrath of God, Queen of England.(Review)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2000... Eleanor of Aquitaine: By the Wrath of God, Queen of England. Alison Weir. Jonathan Cape. [pounds]18.99. 444 pages. ISBN 0-224-04424-9. Alison Weir has hitherto directed her biographical energies mainly to the Tudors and the Wars of the Roses....

The Faber Book of Writers on Writers.(Review)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2000... The Faber Book of Writers on Writers. Sean French, editor. Faber and Faber. [pounds]20.00/Can$40.00 216 pages. ISBN 0-571-14649-X. In his Introduction the editor explains the basis of this collection: 'There is an inherent comedy in the...

The Vintage Book of War Stories.(Review)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2000... The Vintage Book of War Stories. Sebastian Faulks and Jorg Hensgen, editors. Vintage. [pounds]7.99 p.b. 396 pages. ISBN 0-099-26862-0. This 'Vintage Original' is an anthology of extracts from 'works of fiction set in the wars of this (the...

The Life and Crimes of Agatha Christie: A Biographical Companion to the Works of Agatha Christie.(Review)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2000... The Life and Crimes of Agatha Christie: A Biographical Companion to the Works of Agatha Christie. Charles Osborne. HarperCollins. [pounds]16.99. 421 pages. ISBN 0-00-257033-5. The author of this companion is better known for his books on opera...

The Times' History of the 20th Century.(Review)
May 1, 2000... The Times' History of the 20th Century. Richard Overy, general editor. Times Books-HarperCollins. [pounds]29.99.239 pages. ISBN 0-7230-1028-5. This is the second edition of an established title first published in 1996. The sixteen well known...