Contemporary Review articles from September 2004

Contemporary Review archives from September 2004

The mystery of the Caspian oil boom part one.
September 1, 2004... IT is hard to think of an industry that has a hype machine as phenomenal as the potential Caspian energy industry. Ever since the disintegration of the USSR in 1991, the Caspian Basin has been touted as one of the world's largest new energy...

At school with Margaret Thatcher.
September 1, 2004... MARGARET Thatcher, or Margaret Roberts, as she then was, is stamped indelibly on my mind. It was September 1941, yet I can see her as clearly now as though I were studying a photograph. This is due to an accident of my positioning in the hall...

Pakistani nuclear deals and international security.
September 1, 2004... ABDUL Qadeer Khan, the self-styled 'Father of the Islamic Bomb', is a metallurgist and the founder of Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme. His greater fame now rests on his having stolen the designs for uranium enrichment technology, along...

What are universities for?
September 1, 2004... ACCORDING to the bland vocabulary of their mission statements, British universities exist for the advancement of knowledge, the development of academic excellence, the dissemination of understanding; they are supposed to be research-led but...

Brazil under a labour government part one.
September 1, 2004... WHEN Brazil's Labour candidate, Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, from the Workers' Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores-PT), won the presidential election of 27 October 2002, there was apprehension in the West, because of reports by some intelligence...

Bush and Booker T. Washington's 'Compassionate Conservatism'.
September 1, 2004... IN 1999, a year before the last Presidential Election, George W. Bush introduced the rather novel idea of 'Compassionate Conservatism', which is based upon the profound belief of 'social progress through individual change'. Bush very much...

The British satirical revolution.
September 1, 2004... FORTY years ago the BBC stopped a very popular television programme because it was offending the British Government. That Was The Week That Was (TW3) was a revolutionary British comedy programme that triggered the television satire boom of the...

Senegal renews its campaign against aids.
September 1, 2004... IN contrast to most sub-Saharan African countries, Senegal's successful attempts to check the spread of HIV/AIDS have transformed the country into a model over the last two decades--a source of inspiration in the global fight against the...

Johnny Hallyday: the making of France's rock king.
September 1, 2004... IT was always easy to underestimate Johnny Hallyday. Wasn't he just some French knock-off of American rock n'rollers? Didn't he take English-language songs and turn them into Gallic versions? As La Fontaine modelled fables on Aesop's? Weren't...

Britain and the creation of Israel.(Reviews)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
September 1, 2004... God, Guns and Israel: Britain, the First World War and the Jews in the Holy Land. Jill Hamilton. Sutton Publishing. [pounds sterling]20. xx + 294 pages. ISBN 0-7509-3323-2. If one leaves frank supernaturalism out of it, there are broadly...

Europe's right-wing extremists.(Reviews)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
September 1, 2004... Right-Wing Extremism in the Twenty-First Century. Peter H. Merkl and Leonard Weinberg, editors. Frank Cass. [pounds sterling]45.00. xv + 311 pages. ISBN 0-7146-8188-1. Right-wing extremism in Europe has been on the rise since the 1980s. In...

Arthur Miller--the making of a playwright.(Reviews)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
September 1, 2004... Arthur Miller: A Life. Martin Gottfried. Faber and Faber. [pounds sterling]25.00. xii + 484 pages. ISBN 0-571-21946-2. Successful writers must lament two inevitable trends in biography: to find that they are little more than 'part of a...

A new biography of John F. Kennedy.(Reviews)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
September 1, 2004... John F. Kennedy: An Unfinished Life 1917-1963. Robert Dallek. Allen Lane. [pounds sterling]25.00. 838 pages. ISBN 0-7139-9737-0. The perennial appeal of John F. Kennedy has continued to generate new books. In the aftermath of his...

Reformation Britain re-examined.(Reviews)(Book Review)
September 1, 2004... Scotland, England, and the Reformation 1534-1561. Clare Kellar. Clarendon Press, Oxford. [pounds sterling]45.00. xi + 257 pages. ISBN 0-19-926670-0. This book, developed from a doctoral thesis, belongs to the Oxford Historical Monographs...

Robert Browning's private life.(Reviews)(Book Review)
September 1, 2004... Browning: A Private Life. Iain Finlayson. HarperCollins. [pounds sterling]30. X + 758 pages. ISBN 0-00-255507-7. Iain Finlayson's hefty study of the private life of Robert Browning is the biographical equivalent of the equally bulky...

Japan's doctors of death.(Reviews)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
September 1, 2004... A Plague Upon Humanity: The Secret Genocide of Axis Japan's Germ Warfare Operation. Daniel Barenblatt. Souvenir Press. [pounds sterling]18.99. XXV + 260 pages. ISBN 0-285-63693-6. The name of Dr Joseph Mengele, the chief doctor of the...

The world of paperbacks.(Reviews)(Book Review)
September 1, 2004... This month's survey of new titles begins with PHOENIX which has brought out Liza Picard's Elizabeth's London: Everyday Life in Elizabethan London ([pounds sterling]7.99), the latest volume in her wide-ranging history of London life under the...

Joe's War: My Father Decoded.(Reviews)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
September 1, 2004... Joe's War: My Father Decoded. Annette Kobak. Virago. [pounds sterling]16.99. xii + 420 pages. ISBN 1-84408-048-X. This is one of the most unusual books on the Second World War to be published in recent years. It is 'an excursion into the Second...

Putin: Russia's Choice.(Reviews)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
September 1, 2004... Putin: Russia's Choice. Richard Sakwa. Routledge. [pounds sterling]55.00. xi + 307 pages. ISBN 0-415-29664-1. Prof. Sakwa, because of his recent work on modern Russian politics, is uniquely placed to write this biographical study of Valdimir...

John Paul II: A Pope for the People.(Reviews)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
September 1, 2004... John Paul II: A Pope for the People. Luigi Accattoli, Heinz-Joachim Fischer, Arthur Hertzberg, Marco Politi and Hansjakob Stehle. Russell Stockman, translator. Harry N. Abrams. [pounds sterling]25.00. 208 pages. ISBN 0-8109-4984-9. The position...

Louis XIV.(Reviews)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
September 1, 2004... Louis XIV. Anthony Levi. Constable. [pounds sterling]25.00. xxii + 391 pages. ISBN 1-84119-425-5. This biography of the Sun King follows on the heels of the author's highly praised study of Cardinal Richelieu. It seeks to discover 'what it felt...

The Last of England?(Reviews)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
September 1, 2004... The Oxford English Literary History Volume 12. 1960-2000. The Last of England? Randall Stevenson. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]30.00. xv + 624 pages. ISBN 0-19-818423-9. The penultimate volume in this literary history begins on a...

Eugenie and Her Empire.(Reviews)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
September 1, 2004... Eugenie and Her Empire. Desmond Seward. Sutton Publishing. [pounds sterling]20.00. 321 pages. ISBN 0-7509-2929-0. Empress Eugenie has always had more admirers among les Anglo-Saxons than in the country she glittered over as Empress for almost...

International Relations and the Problem of Difference.(Reviews)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
September 1, 2004... International Relations and the Problem of Difference. Naeem Inayatullah and David L. Blaney. Routledge. [pounds sterling]55.00. xii + 276 pages. ISBN 0-415-94637-9. The aim of this study is 'to explain why IR [the study of international...

Gaudier-Brzeska: An Absolute Case of Genius.(Reviews)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
September 1, 2004... Gaudier-Brzeska: An Absolute Case of Genius. Paul O'Keeffe. Allen Lane. [pounds sterling]29.00. vii + 371 pages. ISBN 0-713-99327-8. Mr O'Keeffe may be called a biographer concerned with genius: the title of his first book, a life of Wyndham...

Eleanor Rathbone and the Politics of Conscience.(Reviews)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
September 1, 2004... Eleanor Rathbone and the Politics of Conscience. Susan Pedersen. Yale University Press. [pounds sterling]25.00. xv + 469 pages. ISBN 0-300-10245-3. Eleanor Rathbone was born into one of the great (and wealthy) radical Dissenting families, the...

Devolution and British Politics.(Reviews)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
September 1, 2004... Devolution and British Politics. Michael O'Neill, editor. Longman. [pounds sterling]19.99 p.b. xvi + 388 pages. ISBN 0-582-47274-1. This collection examines the United Kingdom in the wake of the Blairite creation of devolved government in...

Dark Horse: A Life of Anna Sewell.(Reviews)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
September 1, 2004... Dark Horse: A Life of Anna Sewell. Adrienne E. Gavin. Sutton Publishing. [pounds sterling]20.00. xi + 276 pages. ISBN 0-7509-2838-7. Succeeding generations of English-speaking children have been entranced by Black Beauty, Anna Sewell's...

1759: The Year Britain Became Master of the World.(Reviews)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
September 1, 2004... 1759: The Year Britain Became Master of the World. Frank McLynn. Jonathan Cape. [pounds sterling]20.00. x + 422 pages. ISBN 0-224-06245-X. Prof. McLynn argues that '1759 should really be as well known in British history as 1066' because it...

Civil War: The Wars of the Three Kingdoms 1638-1660.(Reviews)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
September 1, 2004... Civil War: The Wars of the Three Kingdoms 1638-1660. Trevor Royle. Little, Brown. [pounds sterling]20.00. xvii + 888 pages. ISBN 0-316-86125-1. The author has made a name for himself in recent years as a writer on military history and in this...

The First Industrial Region: North-West England, c. 1700-60.(Reviews)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
September 1, 2004... The First Industrial Region: North-West England, c. 1700-60. Jon Stobart. Manchester University Press. [pounds sterling]49.99. xi + 259. ISBN 0-7190-6462-7. In this innovative and carefully thought-out study the author seeks to add more balance...

Tyburn: London's Fatal Tree.(Reviews)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
September 1, 2004... Tyburn: London's Fatal Tree. Alan Brooke and David Brandon. Sutton Publishing. [pounds sterling]20.00. ix + 246 pages. ISBN 0-7509-2971-5. Tyburn, notorious for 600 years as one of London's principal places for public executions is the subject...

John Stuart Mill: A Biography.(Reviews)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
September 1, 2004... John Stuart Mill: A Biography. Nicholas Capaldi. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]27.50 (US$40.00). xx + 436 pages. ISBN 0-521-62024-4. Mill's continuing importance for historians is reflected in this new biography. The author...

Stalin and His Hangmen: An Authoritative Portrait of a Tyrant and Those Who Served Him.(Reviews)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
September 1, 2004... Stalin and His Hangmen: An Authoritative Portrait of a Tyrant and Those Who Served Him. Donald Rayfield. Viking. [pounds sterling]20.00. xxvi + 528 pages. ISBN 0-670-91088-0. Historians have come to see that a true understanding of a...

An Introduction to Literature: Fiction, Poetry, and Drama.(Reviews)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
September 1, 2004... An Introduction to Literature: Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Sylvan Barnet, William Burto and William E. Cain. Pearson Longman. [pounds sterling]39.99 p.b. xxxiv + 1730 pages. ISBN 0-321-10570-2. This new edition of an old favourite is the...

Underground London: Travels Beneath the City Streets.(Reviews)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
September 1, 2004... Underground London: Travels beneath the City Streets. Stephen Smith. Little, Brown. [pounds sterling]17.99. ix + 390 pages. ISBN 0-316-86134-0. The author of this travel book cum popular history of London looks at the capital and its people...

Jacob's Ladder: The History of the Human Genome.(Reviews)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
September 1, 2004... Jacob's Ladder: The History of the Human Genome. Henry Gee. Fourth Estate. [pounds sterling]20.00. xvi + 272 pages. ISBN 1-84115-734-1. To make complicated scientific discoveries intelligible to non-scientists requires great skill and this is...

Hitler's Prisons: Legal Terror in Nazi Germany.(Reviews)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
September 1, 2004... Hitler's Prisons: Legal Terror in Nazi Germany. Nikolaus Wachsmann. Yale University Press. [pounds sterling]30.00. xvii + 538 pages. ISBN 0-300-10250-X. This title, which originated with Yale's New Haven branch, seeks through an exhaustive...

The Black Sea: A History.(Reviews)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
September 1, 2004... The Black Sea: A History. Charles King. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]20.00. xx + 276 pages. ISBN 0-19-924161-9. As Prof. King points out, 'oceans seas and rivers have a history of their own, not merely as highways or boundaries but...

The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam.(Reviews)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
September 1, 2004... The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam. Martin Windrow. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. [pounds sterling]25.00. 734 pages. ISBN 0-297-84671-X. To English-speakers the Malaya Insurgence, the Korean Conflict and, most of all, the...

The Transformation of British Life, 1950-2000: A Social History.(Reviews)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
September 1, 2004... The Transformation of British Life, 1950-2000: A Social History. Andrew Rosen. Manchester University Press. [pounds sterling]42.50. xii + 211 pages. ISBN 0-7190-6611-5. The author has chosen his title carefully: British life in the second half...