Contemporary Review articles from October 2002

Contemporary Review archives from October 2002

The problem of Iraq.
October 1, 2002... AT the time of writing it seems quite possible that President Bush will, sooner or later, commit US forces to action against Iraq. In the last two weeks Vice-President Cheney and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld have spoken publicly in terms which...

Full Marx for Mullahs: a reflection on social control in Islam.
October 1, 2002... Part II IN Part I of this essay, published last month, the assets of Islam as a disciplining or controlling faith were explored. It cannot be too much stressed that Islam's strength, from a contemporary Western perspective, is partly...

The modernization of Ireland: gains and losses.
October 1, 2002... FREQUENTLY termed the 'Celtic Tiger' for its flourishing economy, Ireland's growth has been spectacular over the past decade and so swift and dynamic that it has essentially leaped from an agriculture to an information technology focused...

The Canadian monarchy.
October 1, 2002... A month after 9/11, as the September 11th, 2001, destruction of the New York World Trade Center is now called, I was in the stacks of the University of Toronto library and found myself face-to-face with a wall of cloth-bound Hansards, the...

The conflict in Kashmir.
October 1, 2002... THE Himalayan region of Jammu and Kashmir has been a flashpoint for hostility between India and Pakistan for more than half a century. The former princely state includes the Hindu-majority plains of Jammu, the mainly Muslim Kashmir Valley and...

The euro: a year of problems.
October 1, 2002... THE 'ever closer union' seems to get closer and closer. On 1 January 2002, 300 million citizens said goodbye to their historic old currencies, replacing them with one, the euro. Romano Prodi, the European Commission President, predicted that...

Appalachia's vanishing mountains.
October 1, 2002... 'IT'S a tragedy, an Appalachian Tragedy, what is happening in the coalfields now', said Julia Bonds, a member of a group of West Virginia residents called Coal River Mountain Watch. 'You drive the main roads and you see a mountain to the left...

Art notes: travelling light at the National Gallery.
October 1, 2002... The touring exhibitions of pictures arranged by the London National Gallery are trebly useful. As well as letting more people see some of the national collection, they rouse regional galleries less admirable than those at Bristol and Newcastle...

The Boulting Brothers and the contemporary British film industry.(Biography)
October 1, 2002... THE death last year of Roy Boulting saw the passing of one of the more singular and successful of British film making partnerships. Roy and his twin brother John wrote, produced, and directed a string of features, from before World War Two to...

Britain and the Cold War. (Reviews).(The Secret State: Whitehall and the Cold War, 1945-1970; Know Your Enemy: How the Joint Intelligence Committee Saw the World)(Book Review)
October 1, 2002... The Secret State: Whitehall and the Cold War, 1945-1970. Peter Hennessy. Allen Lane The Penguin Press. [pounds sterling]16.99. 256 pages. ISBN 0-713-99626-9. Know Your Enemy: How the Joint Intelligence Committee Saw the World. Percy Cradock....

A Fury for God. (Reviews).(Book Review)
October 1, 2002... A Fury for God: The Islamist Attack on America. Malise Ruthven. Granta Publications. [pounds sterling]15.00. 324 pages. ISBN 1-86207-540-9. Although New York and Washington D.C. were the epicentres of the terrorist attacks on September the...

Robinson Crusoe's Creator. (Reviews).
October 1, 2002... Seeking Robinson Crusoe. Tim Severin. Macmillan. [pounds sterling]18.99. 353 pages. ISBN 0-333-90555-5. Travel writing has always been something of a generic mixture. The travel writer is neither novelist nor historian, but he has a crack...

Getting the most out of Shakespeare. (Reviews).(Speaking Shakespeare)(Book Review)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2002... Speaking Shakespeare. Patsy Rodenburg. Methuen. [pounds sterling]25.00. 356 pages. ISBN 0413-70040-2. Patsy Rodenburg is one of the country's leading vocal coaches, head of the Voice Departments of The Royal National Theatre and the...

Bloomsbury's Painter in Residence: Mark Gertler. (Reviews).(Book Review)
October 1, 2002... Mark Gertler. Sarah MacDougall. John Murray. [pounds sterling]25.398 pages. ISBN 0-7195-5799-22. Born in a slum lodging-house in Gun Street, Spitalfields on December 9th, 1891, at a time when some folk firmly believed that Jack the Ripper...

New and Noteworthy. (Reviews).(Bibliography)
October 1, 2002... From ROUTLEDGE we have a third edition of David Mauk and John Oakland's American Civilization: An Introduction ([pounds sterling]45.00) to replace the last edition published five years ago. It has been thoroughly revised and brought up to date,...

The World of Paperbacks. (Reviews).(Bibliography)
October 1, 2002... VINTAGE has recently published four new titles in its Vintage Lives' series. The first is James McCue's 1997 abridgement of Conor Cruise O'Brien's 1992 'thematic biography', Edmund Burke ([pounds sterling]7.99), a biographical study of...

The Oxford Guide to World English. (Reviews).(Book Review)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2002... The Oxford Guide to World English. Tom McArthur. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]19.99 (US$25.00). 501 pages. ISBN 0-19-866248-3. The author of this book is also editor of the quarterly journal, English Today: The International Review...

Foreign Policy in a Transformed World. (Reviews).(Book Review)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2002... Foreign Policy in a Transformed World. Mark Webber and Michael Smith et al. Prentice Hall. [pounds sterling]21.99. 366 pages. ISBN 0-13-908757-5. The aim of this study is to 'elaborate frameworks for the analysis of foreign policy while at the...

Daemons and Angels: A Life of Jacob Epstein. (Reviews).(Book Review)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2002... Daemons and Angels: A Life of Jacob Epstein. June Rose. Constable. [pounds sterling]20.00. 300 pages. ISBN 1-84119-253-8. This biography is based not only on archive material but on letters made available to the author by the sculptor's three...

The Architect and His Wife: A Life of Edwin Lutyens. (Reviews).(Book Review)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2002... The Architect and His Wife: A Life of Edwin Lutyens. Jane Ridley. Chatto & Windus. [pounds sterling]25.00. 484 pages. ISBN 0-701-17201-0. The author has already edited Lutyens' letters and she has used these family letters, along with other...

Politics and the Nation: Britain in the Mid-Eighteenth Century. (Reviews).(Book Review)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2002... Politics and the Nation: Britain in the Mid-Eighteenth Century. Bob Harris. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]45.00. 392 pages. ISBN 0-19-924693-9. The aim of this study is to 'reconstruct the politics and political culture of Britain'...

Wagons West: The Epic Story of America's Overland Trails. (Reviews).(Book Review)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2002... Wagons West: The Epic Story of America's Overland Trails. Frank McLynn. Jonathan Cape. [pounds sterling]20.00. 509 pages. ISBN 0-224-06009-0. The stories of the wagon trains moving west across the plains have become part of the average...

Art of the Middle Ages. (Reviews).(Book Review)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2002... Art of the Middle Ages. Janetta Rebold Benton. Thames & Hudson. [pounds sterling]8.95 p.b. 320 pages. ISBN 0-500-20350-4. This latest volume in Thames & Hudson's 'World of Art' series looks at mediaeval art, the period from about 300 to about...

Peter the Great: A Biography. (Reviews).(Book Review)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2002... Peter the Great: A Biography. Lindsey Hughes. Yale University Press. [pounds sterling]19.95. 285 pages. ISBN 0-300-09426-4. The author, whose Russia in the Age of Peter the Great was also published by Yale, is the professor of Russian History...

The Boer War. (Reviews).(Book Review)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2002... The Boer War. Denis Judd and Keith Surridge. John Murray. [pounds sterling]25.00. 352 pages. ISBN 0-7195-5585-X. This study, written by two historians well versed in the period and the area, was faced with a common problem: how to say anything...

Stalin on Linguistics and Other Essays. (Reviews).(Book Review)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2002... Stalin on Linguistics and Other Essays. Piers Gray. Colin McCabe and Victoria Rothschild, editors. Palgrave. [pounds sterling]45.00. 267 pages. ISBN 0-333-79282-3. The author of these essays taught in Cambridge and in the University of Hong...

The Greek World 479-323 BC. (Reviews).(Book Review)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2002... The Greek World 479-323 BC. Simon Homblower. Routledge. [pounds sterling]50.00. 396 pages. ISBN 0-415-16326-9. This is a third edition of a study first published in 1983 and last revised in 1991. This edition is 'a completely rewritten version'...

To Be a Pilgrim: The Medieval Pilgrimage Experience. (Reviews).(Book Review)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2002... To Be a Pilgrim: The Medieval Pilgrimage Experience. Sarah Hopper. Sutton Publishing. [pounds sterling]20.00 (US $29.95). 182 pages. ISBN 0-7509-2620-1. The author's expertise as a picture researcher is evident in this beautifully illustrated...

The Crown's Servants: Government and Civil Service under Charles II, 1660-1685. (Reviews).(Book Review)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2002... The Crown's Servants: Government and Civil Service under Charles II, 1660-1685. G. E. Aylmer. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]40.00. 303 pages. ISBN 0-19820826-X. This is the last book by Prof. Gerald Aylmer who died within days of...

The Almanac of British Politics. (Reviews).(Book Review)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2002... The Almanac of British Politics. Robert Waller and Byron Criddle. Routledge. [pounds sterling]35.00 p.b. 929 pages. ISBN 0-415268346. This is the seventh edition of a book which first appeared in 1983 and which soon became established as the...

Zoo: A History of Zoological Gardens in the West. (Reviews).(Book Review)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2002... Zoo: A History of Zoological Gardens in the West. Eric Baratay and Elisabeth Hardouin-Fugier. Oliver Welsh, translator. Reaktion Books. [pounds sterling]28.00. 400 pages. ISBN 1-86189-111-3. This lavishly illustrated history, first published in...

The Complete World of the Dead Sea Scrolls. (Reviews).(Book Review)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2002... The Complete World of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Philip R. Davies, George J. Brooke and Phillip R. Callaway. Thames & Hudson. [pounds sterling]24.95. 216 pages. ISBN 0-500-05111-9. This book is written by three men closely involved with the Dead Sea...

Peacemonger. (Reviews).(Book Review)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2002... Peacemonger. Marrack Goulding. John Murray. [pounds sterling]25.00. 378 pages. ISBN 0-7195-5540-X. Sir Marrack Goulding, since 1997 Warden of St Antony's College, Oxford, spent most of his life in H.M. diplomatic service although in the late...

The British Government Plot to Assassinate Queen Victoria. (Reviews).(Book Review)
October 1, 2002... Fenian Fire: The British Government Plot to Assassinate Queen Victoria. Christy Campbell. HarperCollins. [pounds sterling]18.99. 422 pages. ISBN 0-00-710483-9. The author, a journalist who now specialises in 'forensic historical...