Contemporary Review articles from May 2004

Contemporary Review archives from May 2004

Homeland security: suggestions from the best practices in America.
May 1, 2004... MERIDEN, Connecticut, is a city of just under 60,000 located in the middle of the state between New Haven and Hartford. I serve as the city manager and, like other public officials across the United States, I have in the last three years paid...

Haiti's tradition of curious tyrants.
May 1, 2004... THERE had been a French presence on the western third of the island of Hispaniola since the early seventeenth century. In 1697 Spain ceded this western part of the island to France. With an economy based on sugar and forestry, Saint Dominique...

Signs, impressions, shadows: reflecting on French culture.(The Cambridge Companion to Modern French Culture)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Chez Bertrand was a restaurant like no other. Hidden in a narrow alley of the old quarter of Nice, one discovered it by chance or word-of-mouth. Bertrand hired no publicists. In fact he hired no-one. Somehow he managed to take orders, answer...

The problem of Europe's ageing population.
May 1, 2004... There's no denying it--the world is getting older. 36 per cent of the EU's 380 million people are currently over the age of fifty and this figure is set to rise to 50 per cent in the next twenty-five years. The current median age in the EU is...

Queen Juliana of the Netherlands, 1909-2004.(Obituary)
May 1, 2004... QUEEN Juliana of the Netherlands, who reigned from 1948 to 1980, died at the age of ninety-four early on the morning of Saturday, 20 March 2004. Although she abdicated in 1980, when she assumed the title, Princess, and although she had not...

Russia's nuclear cities end plutonium production.
May 1, 2004... RUSSIA is lifting its ban on foreigners at two secret military settlements in Siberia as a first step to retiring the most dangerous surviving, Soviet-designed nuclear power plants on earth. This is a ground-breaking accord reached by...

Untouchables in the world of it.
May 1, 2004... 'IN Pune they just assume that anyone working in computers is a Brahmin', says a young man from a small town near our home in Western India. He, like many Dalits (ex-Untouchables), is trying to break into the new world of Information...

Liverpool: Capital of Culture.
May 1, 2004... IT came to many people as a very great surprise, not only that Liverpool could be considered as a serious contender for the title of 'European Capital of Culture 2008', but that the city that straddles the Mersey should actually have won it. To...

El Greco at the National Gallery.
May 1, 2004... IN its latest exhibition the National Gallery has mounted, in collaboration with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the most comprehensive display of El Greco's paintings since Le Greco: de la Crete a Tolede in Bordeaux in 1953. A...

The Six Days War revisited.(Six Days: How the 1967 War Shaped the Middle East)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Six Days: How the 1967 War Shaped the Middle East. Jeremy Bowen. Simon & Schuster. [pounds sterling]16.99. ix + 420 pages. ISBN 0-7432-3095-7. The Israeli battle orders for the Six-Day War read as if they have come from the Book of Joshua,...

Post-war Europe as seen through the E.U.(The Struggle for Europe: The History of the Continent since 1945)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... The Struggle for Europe: The History of the Continent since 1945. William I. Hitchcock. Profile Books. [pounds sterling]25.00. 513 pages. ISBN 1-8619-7233-4. There has been no shortage of excellent histories of Europe from 1900 to 1945....

An authoritative life of Stalin.(Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar. Simon Sebag Montefiore. Weidenfeld & Nicholson. [pounds sterling]25.00. 690 pages. ISBN 1-842-12726-8. Sebag Montefiore has produced the authoritative account of Stalin the man, and of his circle, his...

Sir Roy Porter and the sense of self.(Flesh in the Age of Reason)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Flesh in the Age of Reason. Roy Porter. Allen Lane. [pounds sterling]25.00. xviii + 574 pages. ISBN 0-713-99149-6. Sir Roy Porter, sometime professor of the social history of medicine, is already known and highly regarded for works such as...

Sir Peter Hall and Shakespeare.(Shakespeare's Advice to the Players)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Shakespeare's Advice to the Players. Peter Hall. Oberon Books. [pounds sterling]19.99. 218 pages. ISBN 1-84002-372-4. 'He is an iambic fundamentalist!' exclaimed a young actor of Sir Peter Hall, damning him for extremist views. The author...

Lord Longford revised.(The Outcast's Outcast: Lord Longford)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... The Outcast's Outcast: Lord Longford. Peter Stanford. Sutton Publishing. [pounds sterling]20.00. 512 pages. ISBN 0-7509-3248-1. Peter Stanford's 1994 authorized life was considered by at least one associate to be 'so well-balanced that it...

New and noteworthy.
May 1, 2004... THAMES & HUDSON have added two new volumes to their highly successful World of Art series. The first is Timothy Hyman's Sienese Painting: The Art of a City-Republic (1278-1477) ([pounds sterling]8.95). To the author, 'no other art has engaged...

The World of paperbacks.
May 1, 2004... OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS continues its publication of Jane Austen's novels in its World Classics' series with new editions of three novels originally edited by the late Prof. James Kinsley. Sense and Sensibility now has an introduction by Prof....

The National Army Museum Book of Wellington's Armies: Britain's Campaigns in the Peninsula and at Waterloo 1808-1815.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... The National Army Museum Book of Wellington's Armies: Britain's Campaigns in the Peninsula and at Waterloo 1808-1815. Andrew Uffindell. Sidgwick & Jackson. [pounds sterling]30.00. xxi + 362 pages. ISBN 0-283-07348-9. The author's aim is 'to add...

Emperor and Priest: the Imperial Office in Byzantium.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Emperor and Priest: the Imperial Office in Byzantium. Gilbert Dagron. Jean Birrell, translator. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]50.00 (US$75.00). xiii + 337 pages. ISBN 0-521-80123-0. This impressive study, part of the Past and...

Rivers of Gold: The Rise of The Spanish Empire.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Rivers of Gold: The Rise of The Spanish Empire. Hugh Thomas. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. [pounds sterling]25.00. xix + 604 pages. ISBN 0-297-64563-3. Spain's American empire was for 300 years one of the dominating aspects of world history. In this...

The Motoring Age: The Automobile and Britain 1896-1939.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... The Motoring Age: The Automobile and Britain 1896-1939. Peter Thorold. Profile Books. [pounds sterling]20.00. x + 294 pages. ISBN 1-86197-378-0. The author begins his survey on 14 November 1896 the day when the Locomotives on Highways Act...

Elizabeth I: Always Her Own Free Woman.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Elizabeth I: Always Her Own Free Woman. Carole Levin, Jo Eldridge Carney and Debra Barrett-Graves, editors. Ashgate. [pounds sterling]45.00. xii + 282 pages. ISBN 0-7546-0797-6. This collection of twelve essays is designed to give readers 'a...

Europe Reborn: A History, 1914-2000.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Europe Reborn: A History, 1914-2000. Harold James. Longman. [pounds sterling]15.99 p.b. xx + 492 pages. ISBN 0-582-21533-1. The final volume in the Longman History of Modern Europe traces the largely regrettable influence of ideologies, of the...

Rome and Her Empire.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Rome and Her Empire. David Shotter. Longman. [pounds sterling]19.99. x + 453 pages. ISBN 0-582-32816-0. As interest in the Classics declines, so interest in the Roman Empire increases, in part due to popular fascination with archaeology....

Visions of the World: A History of Maps.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Visions of the World: A History of Maps. Jeremy Black. Mitchell Beazley. [pounds sterling]25.00 176 pages. ISBN 1-84000-834-2. In his introduction Prof. Black shows how complex is the world of maps by referring to a New Zealand tea towel which...

God's General: Cromwell the Soldier.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... God's General: Cromwell the Soldier. Simon Robbins. Sutton Publishing. [pounds sterling]20.00. xii + 244 pages. ISBN 0-7509-2879-4. With the weakening of our conscious sense of being a Protestant nation, the catastrophic decline in...

Tilt: A Skewed History of the Tower of Pisa.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Tilt: A Skewed History of the Tower of Pisa. Nicholas Shrady. Simon & Schuster. [pounds sterling]12.99. xxiii + 165 pages. ISBN 0-7432-3169-4. As the author writes, the Tower of Pisa 'is one of those singular monuments which beauty and a sense...

The Medici: Godfathers of the Renaissance.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... The Medici: Godfathers of the Renaissance. Paul Strathern. Jonathan Cape. [pounds sterling]20.00. xiii + 431 pages. ISBN 0-224-07106-8. The Medici family dominated Florence and its mediaeval Republic and eventually spread its influence through...

Scotland's Empire 1600-1815.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Scotland's Empire 1600-1815. T. M. Devine. Allen Lane. [pounds sterling]25.00. xxviii + 474 pages. ISBN 0-713-99498-3. As Prof. Devine writes, one of the ironies of this country's eighteenth-century imperial expansion was that as it expanded...

John Maynard Keynes 1883-1946: Economist, Philosopher, Statesman.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... John Maynard Keynes 1883-1946: Economist, Philosopher, Statesman. Robert Skidelsky. Macmillan. [pounds sterling]30.00. xxxi + 1021 pages. ISBN 0-333-90312-9. The author's massive, three-volume biography of Keynes was published between 1983 and...

The Coming of the Third Reich.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... The Coming of the Third Reich. Richard J. Evans. Allen Lane. [pounds sterling]25.00. xxxiv + 622 pages. ISBN 0-713-99648-X. This title is the first of a three-volume history of the Third Reich and takes the story up to Hitler's rise to power in...

King James VI and I: Selected Writings.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... King James VI and I: Selected Writings. Neil Rhodes, Jennifer Richards and Joseph Marshall, editors. Ashgate. [pounds sterling]49.50. xiv + 413 pages. ISBN 0-7546-0482-9. The 'revision' of James I among historians and biographers has been a...

Galileo in Rome: The Rise and Fall of a Troublesome Genius.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Galileo in Rome: The Rise and Fall of a Troublesome Genius. William R. Shea and Mariano Artigas. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]16.99. xi + 226 pages. ISBN 0-19-516598-5. Galileo's difficulties with the Vatican are part of our...

The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty. Caroline Alexander. HarperCollins. [pounds sterling]20.00. xviii + 491 pages. ISBN 0-00-257221-4. The story of the mutiny on HMS Bounty in 1789 has reached millions through the medium of...

The Courtesan's Revenge: Harriette Wilson, the Woman who Blackmailed the King.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... The Courtesan's Revenge: Harriette Wilson, the Woman who Blackmailed the King. Frances Wilson. Faber and Faber. [pounds sterling]20.00. xv + 359 pages. ISBN 0-571-20504-6. Harriette Wilson, born Harriette Dubochet (1786-1845) remains one of the...

Democracy Defended.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Democracy Defended. Gerry Mackie. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]60.00 xvi + 483 pages. ISBN 0-521-82708-6. Prof. Mackie, who teaches in Notre Dame University in the U.S., argues that as democracy makes progress round the world,...

The Stasi: Myth and Reality.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... The Stasi: Myth and Reality. Mike Dennis. Longman. [pounds sterling]19.99. xviii + 269 pages. ISBN 0-582-41422-9. The Stasi, the East German secret service, for which about one in every fifty East German adults worked as an officer or an...

Bacchus: A Biography.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Bacchus: A Biography. Andrew Dalby. The British Museum Press. [pounds sterling]14.99. 166 pages. ISBN 0-7141-2242-4. Bacchus (or Dionysus in Greek mythology) was the god of wine, said to have been born of a union between Zeus and the human,...

Civil Society in British History.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Civil Society in British History: Ideas, Identities, Institutions. Jose Harris, editor. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]50.00. xi + 319 pages. ISBN 0-19-926020-6. This collection might be called a study in the resurrection of a term,...

Capital of the Mind.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Capital of the Mind: How Edinburgh Changed the World. James Buchan. John Murray. [pounds sterling]20.00. xi + 436 pages. ISBN 0-7195-5446-2. The author's position is made crystal clear in the Prologue: from the 1740s to the French Revolution...

Hitler's Last Chief of Foreign Intelligence.(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Hitler's Last Chief of Foreign Intelligence: Allied Interrogations of Walter Schellenberg. Reinhard R. Doerries. Frank Cass. [pounds sterling]35.00. xvii + 382 pages. ISBN 0-7146-5400-0. SS Brigadefuhrer Walter Schellenberg was the most...

Drive On! A Social History of the Motor Car.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Drive On! A Social History of the Motor Car. L. J. K. Setright. Granta Books. [pounds sterling]25.00. ix + 405 pages. ISBN 1-86207-628-6. This title was first published by Palawan Press in 2002. As the author writes in his Preamble, 'the social...

The Militant Suffrage Movement: Citizenship and Resistance in Britain, 1860-1930.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... The Militant Suffrage Movement: Citizenship and Resistance in Britain, 1860-1930. Laura E. Nym Mayhall. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]30.00. xiii + 218 pages. ISBN 0-19-515993-4. The aim of this study is to look at 'suffrage...

Television Policies of the Labour Party 1951-2001.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Television Policies of the Labour Party 1951 - 2001. Des Freedman. Frank Cass. [pounds sterling]18.50 p. b. xv + 224 pages. ISBN 0-7146-8387-6. The background to this history is twofold: for the period covered, Labour were only in power for...