Contemporary Review articles from October 2005

Contemporary Review archives from October 2005

A day in London: how to be a British boy.
October 1, 2005... AMONG the more seemingly 'diagnostic' pronouncements of the press on the first successful strike by the Islamic insurgency in Britain (I mean diagnostic of media culture itself, not analytical of 'homegrown suicide-bombing') was one from The...

The realignment of India-US relations: strategic dimensions.
October 1, 2005... OVER the past few years, India and the United States have been getting on better than ever. Joint exercises have been conducted between the United States and Indian forces near Agra, and the United States has also indicated it will supply...

The new British Schools in Beijing.
October 1, 2005... BRITISH school education has achieved a worldwide reputation for quality. British schools overseas annually welcome many thousands of students from all over the world and the numbers are increasing. It is no surprise, therefore, that there are...

Terrorism and international law.
October 1, 2005... INTERNATIONAL action against terrorism is once again on the agenda. On the one hand, there have been terrorist attacks such as those of 11 September 2001 in the United States and 7 July 2005 in London. On the other hand, the UN Secretary...

Poisoned arrow pointillism.
October 1, 2005... IN her brilliant memoir, Tiger's Eye, reflecting on the inadequacy of the accounts she offers of her parents, Inga Clendinnen writes: 'We build up our pictures of people intimately known by a kind of pointillism, a thousand flecks of experience...

Psychiatric hospitals--the unwritten story.
October 1, 2005... IN the spring of 2003, I began a stint as a Health Support Worker on a psychiatric ward in a large northern city, having spent the best part of the previous three years employed in mental health work around the country. From my first job in...

'Casablanca' in its time--and ours.(Movie Review)
October 1, 2005... WHY do our historians talk of occupation or semi-occupation, and its choices as if they or we will never experience it? In terms of resistance, even today we have few who will stand up to the nets, the strictures of political correctness and...

America's Rapprochement with China.(Constructing the US Rapprochement with China, 1961-1974: From "Red Menace to Tacit Ally")(Book Review)
October 1, 2005... Constructing the US Rapprochement with China, 1961-1974: From "Red Menace to Tacit Ally". Evelyn Goh. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]45.00 (US$75.00). xii + 274 pages. ISBN: 0-521-83986-6. President Richard Nixon is...

The future for the conservatives.(The Strange Death of Tory England)(Margaret Thatcher's Revolution: How It Happened and What It Meant)(Book Review)
October 1, 2005... The Strange Death of Tory England. Geoffrey Wheatcroft. Allen Lane. [pounds sterling]20.00. xv + 318 pages. ISBN 0-713-99801-6. Margaret Thatcher's Revolution: How It Happened and What It Meant. Subroto Roy and John Clarke, editors. Continuum....

Bismarck and the making of modern Germany.(The Bismarck Myth: Weimar Germany and the Legacy of the Iron Chancellor)(Book Review)
October 1, 2005... The Bismarck Myth: Weimar Germany and the Legacy of the Iron Chancellor. Robert Gerwarth. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]45.00. xii + 216 pages. ISBN 0-19928184-X. There are few better ways of comprehending the spirit that...

Allen Lane and the Penguin revolution.(Penguin Special: The Life and Times of Allen Lane)(Book Review)
October 1, 2005... Penguin Special: The Life and Times of Allen Lane. Jeremy Lewis. Viking. [pounds sterling]25.00. xii + 484 pages. ISBN 0-670-91485-1. Few events have had a greater impact on the democratisation of Western societies than the mass-production...

A new look at Harold Nicolson.(Book Review)
October 1, 2005... Harold Nicolson. Norman Rose. Jonathan Cape. [pounds sterling]20.00. xv + 383 pages. ISBN 0-22406218-2. For the last four decades Sir Harold Nicolson and his wife, Vita Sackville-West, have enjoyed cult status in the literary world. The...

New and noteworthy.(Dr. Johnson's Dictionary: The Extraordinary Story of the Book that Defined the World)(Anniversary Essays on Johnson's Dictionary)(The Magic Mountain)(The Garden of the Finzi-Continis)(Curious Pursuits: Occasional Writing 1970-2005)(The Shakespeare Miscellany)(The Routledge Companion to World History since 1914)(The Oxford Dictionary of the Classical World)(Book Review)
October 1, 2005... The 250th anniversary of the publication of Dr Johnson's famous Dictionary has been the occasion for several studies. Among the best is Henry Hitchings' Dr Johnson's Dictionary: The Extraordinary Story of the Book that Defined the World from...

The world of paperbacks.
October 1, 2005... I.B. TAURIS has published the first paperback edition of George Herbert Hill's Retreat from Death: A Soldier on the Somme ([pounds sterling]12.99), a moving and first-hand account of the Great War by a man who was eighteen when his battalion...

Ten Pound Poms: Australia's Invisible Migrants.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
October 1, 2005... Ten Pound Poms: Australia's Invisible Migrants. A. James Hammerton and Alistair Thomson. Manchester University Press. [pounds sterling]55.00. xii + 388 pages. ISBN 0-7190-7133-X. Between the end of the Second World War and the 1970s some...

The European Union since 1945.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
October 1, 2005... The European Union since 1945. Alasdair Blair. Longman. [pounds sterling]12.99 p.b. xxx + 159 pages. ISBN 0-582-42393-7. This latest number in Longman's Seminar Studies in History looks at the E.U. Given that European bureaucrats create some 60...

Representation and Misrepresentation in Later Stuart Britain: Partisanship and Political Culture.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
October 1, 2005... Representation and Misrepresentation in Later Stuart Britain: Partisanship and Political Culture. Mark Knights. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]65.00. xvi + 431 pages. ISBN 0-19-925833. In this innovative study Mr Knights takes a new...

Tiny Revolutions in Russia: Twentieth-Century Soviet and Russian History in Anecdotes.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
October 1, 2005... Tiny Revolutions in Russia: Twentieth-Century Soviet and Russian History in Anecdotes. Bruce Adams. Routledge-Curzon. [pounds sterling]60.00. vii + 173 pages. ISBN 0-415-35173-1. George Orwell once wrote, 'Every joke is a tiny revolution'....

Don't you know there's a War on? Voices from the Home Front.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
October 1, 2005... Don't you know there's a War on? Voices from the Home Front. Jonathan Croall. Sutton Publishing. [pounds sterling]18.99. xv + 256 pages. ISBN 0-7509-3698-3. This collection of thirty-five first-hand reminiscences of life during the Second World...

Catholics and the 'Protestant Nation': Religious Politics and Identity in Early Modern England.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
October 1, 2005... Catholics and the 'Protestant Nation': Religious Politics and Identity in Early Modern England. Ethan H. Shagan. Manchester University Press. [pounds sterling]49.99. viii + 213 pages. ISBN 0-7190-5768-X. The eight essays in this collection, by...

Bloody April: Slaughter in the Skies over Arras, 1917.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
October 1, 2005... Bloody April: Slaughter in the Skies over Arras, 1917. Peter Hart. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. [pounds sterling]25.00. 381 pages. ISBN 0-297-84621-3. The author, who is the Oral Historian at the Imperial War Museum, has made good use of the Museum's...

The Terror: Civil War in the French Revolution.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
October 1, 2005... The Terror: Civil War in the French Revolution. David Andress. Little, Brown. [pounds sterling]20.00. x + 437 pages. ISBN 0-316-86181-2. The object of this study is to take a new look at the Terror which seized France in 1794 and led to so many...

All of These People: A Memoir.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
October 1, 2005... All of These People: A Memoir. Fergal Keane. HarperCollins. [pounds sterling]18.99. xvi + 396 pages. ISBN 0-00-717692-9. Popular opinion has it that Irishmen have a gift for the gab and in Fergal Keane's case the gift has qualified him to...

Viking Empires.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
October 1, 2005... Viking Empires. Angelo Forte, Richard Oram and Frederik Pedersen. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]25.00 (US$40.00). xiv + 447 pages. ISBN 0-521-82992-5. This book is 'the first study in English to take the discussion of the origins...

The Passion.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
October 1, 2005... The Passion. Geza Vermes. Penguin Books. [pounds sterling]6.99 p.b. viii + 130 pages. ISBN 0-141-02132-2. Mr Vermes is the leading scholar amongst those who search for 'the historical Jesus'. This quest, largely a nineteenth-century creation,...

Comrade Pavlik: The Rise and Fall of a Soviet Boy Hero.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
October 1, 2005... Comrade Pavlik: The Rise and Fall of a Soviet Boy Hero. Catriona Kelly. Granta Books. [pounds sterling]17.99. xxxii + 352 pages. ISBN 1-86207-747-9. Having outlawed Christianity the Soviet dictatorship needed to create a new religion with new...

The Letters of Lytton Strachey.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
October 1, 2005... The Letters of Lytton Strachey. Paul Levy, editor. Viking. [pounds sterling]30.00. xxii + 698 pages ISBN 9-780670-89112-6. Thankfully the time is long gone when the baleful legacy of Strachey influenced any thinking person's view of the...

The Public Art Museum in Nineteenth Century Britain: The Development of the National Gallery.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
October 1, 2005... The Public Art Museum in Nineteenth Century Britain: The Development of the National Gallery. Christopher Whitehead. Ashgate. [pounds sterling]47.50. xix + 270 pages. ISBN 0-7546-3236-9. One of the nineteenth century's greatest achievements was...

The Thin Red Line: An Eyewitness History of the Crimean War.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
October 1, 2005... The Thin Red Line: An Eyewitness History of the Crimean War. Julian Spilsbury. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. [pounds sterling]20.00. xi + 340 pages. ISBN 0-297-84625-6. The author uses his military background to good effect in this account of the...

The Spanish Civil War: A Very Short Introduction.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
October 1, 2005... The Spanish Civil War: A Very Short Introduction. Helen Graham. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]6.99 p.b. x + 175 pages. ISBN 0-19-280377-8. The aim of the latest release in O.U.P.'s 'very short introduction' series is 'to explain the...

Surviving the Sword: Prisoners of the Japanese 1942-45.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
October 1, 2005... Surviving the Sword: Prisoners of the Japanese 1942-45. Brian MacArthur. Time Warner Books. [pounds sterling]20.00. xv + 495 pages. ISBN 0-316-86142-1. This is not a pleasant book but it is one that needed writing and publishing. The sufferings...

The Church in Anglo-Saxon Society.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
October 1, 2005... The Church in Anglo-Saxon Society. John Blair. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]30.00. xix + 604 pages. ISBN 0-19-822695-0. This erudite study can be called a social or cultural history of the English church up to the dawn of the...

Augustine, Sinner & Saint: A New Biography.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
October 1, 2005... Augustine, Sinner & Saint: A New Biography. James J. O'Donnell. Profile Books. [pounds sterling]25.00. xv + 396 pages. ISBN 1 86197-686-0. This biographical study was first published in the U.S. by ECCO (HarperCollins). The author is a...

Wars of Words: The Politics of Language in Ireland 1537-2004.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
October 1, 2005... Wars of Words: The Politics of Language in Ireland 1537-2004. Tony Crowley. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]30.00. x + 253 pages. ISBN 0-19-927343-X. The author is concerned with the relationship between language and politics in...

British Politics and European Elections 2004.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
October 1, 2005... British Politics and European Elections 2004. David Butler and Martin Westlake. Palgrave-Macmillan. [pounds sterling]45.00. xiv + 230 pages. ISBN 1-4039-3585-8. Psephologists must be among the few in the U.K. actually to welcome Euro-elections,...

Warriors: Exceptional Tales from the Battlefield.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
October 1, 2005... Warriors: Extraordinary Tales from the Battlefield. Max Hastings. HarperCollins. [pounds sterling]20.00. xxvii + 384 pages. ISBN 0-00-719756-X. In this book Sir Max looks at 'the experience of some remarkable characters who made their marks...

The Looting of the Iraq Museum, Baghdad: The Lost Legacy of Ancient Mesopotamia.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
October 1, 2005... The Looting of the Iraq Museum, Baghdad: The Lost Legacy of Ancient Mesopotamia. Milbry Polk & Angela M.Y.H. Schuster, editors. Harry N. Abrams. [pounds sterling]35.00. xiv + 242 pages. ISBN 0-8109-5872-4. This book was, in the editors' words,...

Brewer's Britain & Ireland.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
October 1, 2005... Brewer's Britain & Ireland. John Ayto and Ian Crofton, compilers. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. [pounds sterling]30.00. xxxi + 1267 pages. ISBN 0-304-35385-X. This massive book sets out to give readers 'a rounded and integrated portrait of the places...

The Middle East in International Relations: Power, Politics and Ideology.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
October 1, 2005... The Middle East in International Relations: Power, Politics and Ideology. Fred Halliday. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]40.00 (US$65.00). xii + 374 pages. ISBN 0-521-59741-2. Prof. Halliday writes as a social scientist trying to...

The Cambridge Companion to Durkheim.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
October 1, 2005... The Cambridge Companion to Durkheim. Jeffrey C. Alexander and Philip Smith, editors. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]40.00 (US$75.00). xvi + 426 pages. ISBN 0-521-00151-X. Few men have to dominated any academic discipline as Emile...