Contemporary Review articles from September 2002

Contemporary Review archives from September 2002

Full Marx for Mullahs: a reflection on social control in Islam - Part I.
September 1, 2002... Part I Editor's Note: In the year since the terrorist attacks in America, virtually every issue of Contemporary Review has carried articles about some aspect of that tragic event. This issue is no exception. We begin below the first of a...

American views of the French.
September 1, 2002... THE American view of France today is a hard thing to encapsulate. Judging by some columnists, France is a power with too little to contribute militarily and entirely too much to say concerning American policies abroad. It is also a country...

Political life over fifty years -- a reflection.(United Kingdom)
September 1, 2002... IN 1952, on the untimely death of her father, our young Queen returned from East Africa to be received at the airport by her Prime Minister, Winston Churchill and the Cabinet. A lasting memory is of the photograph which appeared in the press...

Globalisation now and then.
September 1, 2002... THE trouble with globalisation', remarked a social observer, 'is that it has created a "soundbite culture" characterised by its demand for all that is quick and instantaneous'. Indeed, it is an irony that in a knowledge-orientated age we are...

Mauritius: a cyber-island in the making.
September 1, 2002... EFFORTS are in full swing to develop Mauritius into a cyber-island and to make information and communication technology the fifth pillar of the economy after sugar, textiles, tourism and financial services. But, researchers warn, an exciting...

Art notes: the Fauves invade the academy.(Masters of Colour from Derain to Kandinsky, Royal Academy, London, England)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... Masters of Colour from Derain to Kandinsky, an exhibition which continues until 17 November at the Royal Academy, offers a rare chance to see pictures from the Merzbacher Collection, notable for its paintings by the Fauves and their associates....

The joys of Reading.
September 1, 2002... BACON said 'Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man'. (I recall a favourite undergraduate howler: "'Eating maketh a full man" (Bacon)'.) We are told that the age of the printed word between hard, or even...

Travels among the antiquities of eastern Anatolia.
September 1, 2002... HIGH on a hillside, above the derelict remains of Tushpa is a plaque commemorating the Persian king Xerxes who passed that way en route to his failed invasion of Greece in 480 BC. It is written in the wedge-shaped cuneiform script invented here...

Lady Thatcher on Statecraft.(Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World)
September 1, 2002... Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World. Margaret Thatcher. HarperCollins. [pounds sterling]25.00. 486 pages. ISBN 0-00-710752-8. The pungent polemic of Margaret Thatcher's proposal that the United Kingdom renegotiate its membership of...

Israelis and Palestinians -- one land, two peoples.(Holy Land, Unholy War: Israelis and Palestinians)
September 1, 2002... Holy Land, Unholy War: Israelis and Palestinians. Anton La Guardia. John Murray. [pounds sterling]22.50. 380 pages. ISBN 0-7195-5601-5. Anyone who claims to be objective about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a fool or a terrorist or...

Sex Slaves for the Emperor.(Japan's Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery and Prostitution During World War II and the US Occupation)
September 1, 2002... Japan's Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery and Prostitution during World War II and the US Occupation. Yuki Tanaka. Routledge. [pounds sterling]55.00. ISBN 0-415-19400-8. To the servicemen of the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy of World War II...

What Mr Waugh thinks of God.(God by Alexander Waugh)
September 1, 2002... God. Alexander Waugh. Review (Hodder Headline). [pounds sterling]18.99. 340 pages. ISBN 0-7472-7016-3. Alexander Waugh is one of the far from lost tribe of Waughs, son of Auberon and grandson of Evelyn. He is also cartoonist, illustrator,...

The Intellectual Behind Brave New World.(Aldous Huxley: An English Intellectual)
September 1, 2002... Aldous Huxley: An English Intellectual. Nicholas Murray. Little, Brown. [pounds sterling]20.00. ISBN 0-316-85492-1. Born a Victorian, Aldous Huxley consciously retained the speech and manner of his privileged origins. He was markedly...

New and Noteworthy.(nine books)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... This month's column begins with two new books on Russian history, one general, one specific. The general discussion is the third edition of Richard Sakwa's Russian Politics and Society ([pounds sterling]70.00) from ROUTLEDGE. So rapidly has...

Camille Claudel: A Life.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... Camille Claudel: A Life. Odile Ayral-Clause. Harry N. Abrams. [pounds sterling]19.95. 277 pages. ISBN 0-8109-4077-9. Camille Claudel is mainly famous because she was for a time the mistress and student of Auguste Rodin. The romantic legend is...

Elspeth Huxley: A Biography. (Reviews).(Book Review)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... Elspeth Huxley: A Biography. C. S. Nicholls. HarperCollins. [pounds sterling]20.00. 482 pages. ISBN 0-00-257165-X. Elspeth Huxley was famous to generations of Britons as a writer and broadcaster whose speciality was African affairs and, in...

Primo Levi. (Reviews).(Book Review)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... Primo Levi. Ian Thomson. Hutchinson. [pounds sterling]25.00. 624 pages. ISBN 0-09-178531-6. The author, who was one of the last people to interview Primo Levi before his death, wisely chose not to base his biography on Levi's own...

Bartolome Esteban Murillo (1617-1682): Paintings from American Collections. (Reviews).(Book Review)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... Bartolome Esteban Murillo (1617-1682): Paintings from American Collections. Susanne L. Stratton-Pruitt, editor. Harry N. Abrams in association with the Kimbell Art Museum. [pounds sterling]30.00 (US$60.00). 208 pages. ISBN 0-8109-0390-3. As...

Kingship and Politics in the Reign of Edward VI. (Reviews).(Book Review)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... Kingship and Politics in the Reign of Edward VI. Stephen Alford. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]40.00. 233 pages. ISBN 0-521-66055-6. The reign of the boy-king, Edward VI, has come under close examination in recent years. Much of...

Rain Stops Play: Cricketing Climates. (Reviews).(Book Review)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... Rain Stops Play: Cricketing Climates. Andrew Hignell. Frank Cass. [pounds sterling]42.50. 226 pages. ISBN 0-7146-5173-7. As any foreign visitor knows, the two subjects that dominate English conversation during the summer months are the weather...

Merlin and Wales: A Magician's Landscape. (Reviews).(Book Review)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... Merlin and Wales: A Magician's Landscape. Michael Dames. Thames & Hudson. [pounds sterling]18.95. 192 pages. 0-500-51079-2. This beautifully illustrated book (173 illustrations of which twenty-two are in colour) investigates the role of Merlin...

Magda Goebbels. (Reviews).(Book Review)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... Magda Goebbels. Anja Klabunde. Shaun Whiteside, translator. Little, Brown. [pounds sterling]20.00. 367 pages. ISBN 0-316-85912-5. Magda Goebbels, born Magda Friedlander, has secured a small niche in twentieth century European history by her...

Elizabeth & Georgiana: The Duke of Devonshire and his two Duchesses. (Reviews).(Book Review)
September 1, 2002... Elizabeth & Georgiana: The Duke of Devonshire and his two Duchesses. Caroline Chapman with Jane Dormer. John Murray. [pounds sterling]19.99. 288 pages. ISBN 0-7195-6044-6. The 'triangle' formed in the late eighteenth century by the fifth Duke...

More What If? Eminent Historians Imagine What Might Have Been. (Reviews).(Book Review)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... More What If? Eminent Historians Imagine What Might Have Been. Robert Cowley, editor. Macmillan. [pounds sterling]18.99. 427 pages. ISBN 0-333-90510-5. In industry, factories are built to produce specific goods. In academia it is the other way...

Grave Matters. (Reviews).(Book Review)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... Grave Matters. Mark C. Taylor and Dietrich Christian Lammerts. Reaktion Books. [pounds sterling]17.95 p.b. 192 pages. ISBN 1-86189-117-2. This book is a very personal discussion of graves and the methods of burying the dead as they have evolved...

In Search of King Solomon's Mines. (Reviews).(Book Review)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... In Search of King Solomon's Mines. Tahir Shah. John Murray. [pounds sterling]17.99. 240 pages. ISBN 0-7195-6324-0. A certain generation of schoolboys thrilled to the adventure stories of H. Rider Haggard. Among these was his novel, King...

The Girl from the Fiction Department: A Portrait of Sonia Orwell. (Reviews).(Book Review)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... The Girl from the Fiction Department: A Portrait of Sonia Orwell. Hilary Spurling. Hamish Hamilton. [pounds sterling]9.99. 194 pages. ISBN 0-241-14165-6. The recent spate of biographies of George Orwell, as well as the republication of his...

Early Modern Hermaphrodites: Sex and Other Stories. (Reviews).(Book Review)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... Early Modern Hermaphrodites: Sex and Other Stories. Ruth Gilbert. Palgrave [pounds sterling]45.00. 214 pages. ISBN 0-333-92537-8. This book, which has grown up out of a doctoral thesis, begins its survey in the seventeenth century and...

John Locke: Writings on Religion. (Reviews).(Book Review)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... John Locke: Writings on Religion. Victor Nuovo, editor. Clarendon Press, Oxford. [pounds sterling]50.00. 290 pages. ISBN 0-19-924341-7. As the editor states in his substantial introduction, this collection gives scholars 'the first...

Yesterday Morning. (Reviews).(Book Review)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... Yesterday Morning. Diana Athill. Granta Books. [pounds sterling]12.99. 168 pages. ISBN 1-86207-484-4. This is the fourth volume of memoirs by the writer and editor whose most recent recollections, Stet -- An Editor's Life, was highly praised....

Coleridge's Notebooks: A Selection. (Reviews).(Book Review)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... Coleridge's Notebooks: A Selection. Seamus Perry, editor. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]19.99. 264 pages. ISBN 0-19-871201-4. As Mr Perry notes in his introduction, 'Coleridge is one of the most remarkable writers and thinkers in...

Faith in Diplomacy: A Memoir. (Reviews).(Book Review)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... Faith in Diplomacy: A Memoir. Archie Mackenzie. Caux Books -- Grosvenor Books. [pounds sterling]9.95 p.b. 208 pages. ISBN 1-85239-030-1. These are the recollections of a career diplomat who was born in Glasgow and first attended Glasgow...

Empire, War and Faith in Early Modern Europe. (Reviews).(Book Review)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... Empire, War and Faith in Early Modern Europe. Geoffrey Parker. Allen Lane: The Penguin Press. [pounds sterling]25.00. 411 pages. ISBN 0-71-399515-7. In this book the author, an established authority on European military history, gives us ten...