Contemporary Review articles from September 2008

Contemporary Review archives from September 2008

The end of cheap oil.
September 22, 2008... THE world oil price has recently crept close to $150 per barrel, more than doubling in one year. By July it had reached $147.27, and though it has fallen back, it remains at a level that, if sustained and eventually augmented, poses a danger of...

Assessing the 2008 Zimbabwean elections.
September 22, 2008... A roller coaster... a precipice... Zimbabwe on a razor edge: just some of the metaphors describing the 2008 election of delays. The elections were held against the backdrop of complete economic disintegration with Zimbabwe suffering from the...

'Mare Nostrum': the launch of the Mediterranean Union.(Nicolas Sarkozy's vision )
September 22, 2008... 'COMETH the hour, cometh the man'. The hour is now, the consideration is that the Mediterranean as a region requires the same political dynamic as the European mainland after Year Zero in 1945. This is where it begins again. The man is Nicolas...

Ten years on-the journey towards peace in Northern Ireland.
September 22, 2008... MANY readers will recall the momentous day just over ten years ago, in May 1998, when the political parties in Northern Ireland agreed to move forward and the Northern Ireland Assembly (Irish: Tionol Thuaisceart Eireann; Ulster Scots: Norlin...

Finland's Cold War legacy.(Country overview)
September 22, 2008... IN his song 'Finland' Monty Python's Michael Palin summarised the country of lakes and forests as 'so sadly neglected and often ignored'. This country of 5.3 million people is the most sparsely populated country in the European Union. Obscure...

Quebec's separation movement: it brought Canadian unity closer.(Viewpoint essay)
September 22, 2008... STRANGELY, when one thinks of the separation movement in Canada's province of Quebec, the thoughts immediately focus on the disaster Canada would have faced had Quebec gone its own way. No one would ever have thought in their wildest dreams...

George Konrad: a 'Jewish-Hungarian' novelist reflects on neonazism.(Interview)
September 22, 2008... SURVIVORS of the 1944/45 Budapest Holocaust of Jews, such as myself, still recall with incredulity their own matter-of-fact childhood acceptance of the constant danger of random, casual death. (See Contemporary Review January, 1995 for Irene's...

The serial killer phenomenon.(Viewpoint essay)
September 22, 2008... THE concept of evil, long devalued, derided, and dismissed by psychiatrists and psychologists, seems to have undergone a measure of re-evaluation. The prolonged contemplation of certain varieties of some mass murderers and serial killers has...

The infrastructure of America's cities.
September 22, 2008... Editor's Note: There has been increasing debate in Britain about the physical condition of most large cities. The election in May of a Tory, Boris Johnson, as Mayor of London has led to much speculation about ways to improve it and other...

Violent men threaten health gains in Kenya.(domestic violence)
September 22, 2008... As Kenya emerges from months of political crises marked by rape and sexual attacks by men, many women in this east African country say they do not have to be caught up in conflict to experience gender violence. For them such violence is a...

CD review-Johann Strauss transcribed.(Godowsky: Strauss Transcriptions and Other Waltzes)(Sound recording review)
September 22, 2008... Few events have so revolutionised our appreciation of one of the arts as the invention of recorded sound. Before that comparatively few people, especially those who did not live in musical centres such as Vienna or Paris, had many opportunities...

Shakespeare and Middleton a review article.(Thomas Middleton: The Collected Works)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... SHAKESPEARE changes, a little faster than a glacier but not so slowly that we cannot detect movement. A major shift of perception is now upon us. The Works of Shakespeare are under intense, highly informed scrutiny of authorship. This is not...

Madame Boucher and Madame Chardin.
September 22, 2008... ART is not an ancillary to social history, which is why one is surprised that the current exhibition of the splendours of Boucher and Chardin at the Wallace Collection is designated Masters of Modern Manners, with some emphasis on which figures...

The continuing plight of Australia's Indigenous Peoples.
September 22, 2008... THE most bewildering aspect of Australia's social and economic life is the continuing plight of the country's Aborigines-or as the preference goes--Indigenous Peoples. How is it possible for one of the world's richest countries to have such...

American 'culture'-and its influence.
September 22, 2008... IT is patronizing to refer to contemporary American culture as somehow a doubtful entity, but perhaps the problem is the word 'culture' itself. Would 'mindset' do better? Maybe. However, we will stick with 'culture', identifying some salient...

Columns commemorating British history.
September 22, 2008... FASHIONS in art and architecture go as regularly as they come. There is a certain charm about a form that has a starting-point and a closure; I think, for example, of memorial brasses in churches: first introduced in the early thirteenth...

Nature and culture in Latin America.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... An Environmental History of Latin America. Shawn William Miller. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]35.00 (US$65).xiii + 257 pages. ISBN 978-0-521-61298-2. In this book, the word 'history' is used in its broadest sense, where...

Sir Mike Jackson on Sir Mike Jackson.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Soldier: The Autobiography of General Sir Mike Jackson. General Sir Mike Jackson. Bantam Press. [pounds sterling]18.99. xv + 400 pages. ISBN 978-0-593-05907-4. Sir Mike Jackson ended his career in 2006 as Britain's most senior soldier,...

The history of blasphemy.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Blasphemy in the Christian World: A History. David Nash. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]35.00. xvi + 269 pages. ISBN 978-0-19-925516-0. In the United States, blasphemy effectively vanished from the law when, in the 1951 case...

Peter Ackroyd and Father Thames.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Thames: Sacred River. Peter Ackroyd. Chatto & Windus. [pounds sterling] 25.00. xiv + 490 pages. ISBN 978-0-701-17284-8. Sometime in the late 1990s, after a period of prodigious experimentation in which he established a new genre, the...

Mikhail Gorbachev and Perestroika.(Seven Years That Changed the World: Perestroika in Perspective)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Years that Changed the World: Perestroika in perspective. Archie Brown. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]25.00. xx + 350 pages. ISBN 978-0-19-928215-9. The Perestroika era in the Soviet Union effectively ended Communism and the...

A ground-breaking study of Shakespeare.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Shakespeare in Parts. Simon Palfrey and Tiffany Stern. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]50.00. xiv + 545 pages. ISBN 978-0-19-927205-1. Role comes from roll. In Shakespeare's day, actors were given their parts on long strips of...

A History of Strychnine.(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Bitter Nemesis: The Intimate History of Strychnine. John Buckingham. CRC Press. [pounds sterling] 19.99. xix + 298 pages. ISBN 978-1-4200-5315-9. The readability of a volume entirely dedicated to the venenatious distillate of the Upas tree...

The world of paperbacks.(nonfiction works)(Bibliography)
September 22, 2008... PENGUIN BOOKS have brought out an impressive range of titles devoted to recent history. First we have Prof. Sir Ian Kershaw's Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions that Changed the World 1940-1941 ([pounds sterling]9.99), an examination of the...

Anglicanism and the British Empire.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Anglicanism and the British Empire c. 1700-1850. Rowan Strong. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]55.00. xi + 323 pages. ISBN 978-0-19-921804-2. The author begins this important survey with the S.P.G. but expands his coverage as interest...

Men of Air: The Doomed Youth of Bomber Command.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Men of Air: The Doomed Youth of Bomber Command. Kevin Wilson. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. [pounds sterling]20.00. xii + 435 pages. ISBN 978-0-297-85321-3. This history follows the author's earlier book, Bomber Boys, and is centred on the airmen of...

Masters and Pupils: The Artistic Succession from Perugino to Manet.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Masters and Pupils: The Artistic Succession from Perugino to Manet. Gert-Rudolf Flick. Hogarth Arts. [pounds sterling]50.00. vi + 392 pages. ISBN 978-0-9554063-2-4. Dr Flick's study is a pleasant amble through the by-paths of Art History from...

The English Historical Constitution: Continuity, Change and European Effects. J.W.F. Allison. Cambridge University Press.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... The English Historical Constitution: Continuity, Change and European Effects.J.W.F. Allison. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]50.00 (US$99.99). xii + 275 pages. ISBN 978-0-521-87814-2. This study's aim is 'to put forward a...

The Routledge Companion to Christian History.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... The Routledge Companion to Christian History. Chris Cook. Routledge. [pounds sterling] 60.00. xiv + 365 pages. ISBN 978-0-415-38362-2. This latest volume in Routledge's famous 'companion' series is a cornucopia of information. The editor...

The Making of South Africa: Diamonds, Gold and War.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... The Making of South Africa: Diamonds, Gold and War. Martin Meredith. Simon & Schuster. [pounds sterling] 25.00. 570 pages. ISBN 978-0-7432-8618-3. Martin Meredith, a high-class journalist, deserves the praise he has won for his many books on...

The Confederate Experience Reader: Selected Documents and Essays.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... The Confederate Experience Reader: Selected Documents and Essays. John D. Fowler, editor. Routledge. [pounds sterling] 60.00. xiii + 525 pages. ISBN 978-0-415-97879-3. This balanced and well thought out anthology seeks to 'combine primary...

Spitfire Women of World War Two. Giles Whittell. Harper Press.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Spitfire Women of World War Two. Giles Whittell. Harper Press. [pounds sterling] 20.00. xii + 292 pages. ISBN 9778-0-00-723535-3. One of the major differences between Britain and Germany in the Second World War was the former's willingness to...

Cavalier: A Tale of Chivalry, Passion and Great houses.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Cavalier: A Tale of Chivalry, Passion and Great Houses. Lucy Worsley. Faber and Faber. [pound sterling] 20.00.xix + 332 pages. ISBN 9789-0-571-22703-7. This biography of William Cavendish (1593-1676), later Duke of Newcastle, is the story not...

Germany: The Long Road West.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Germany: The Long Road West. Volume 2: 1933-1990. Heinrich August Winkler. Alexander J. Sager, translator. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]35.00. xii + 685 pages. ISBN 978-0-19-926598-5. With this volume Prof. Winkler brings his...

Lest We Forget: Forgotten Voices from 1914-1945.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Lest We Forget: Forgotten Voices from 1914-1945. Max Arthur, editor. Ebury Press. [pounds sterling]10.99. v + 352 + iv. ISBN 978-0-09-192294-8. Mr Arthur is a well established writer on the two World Wars and is adept at using the material in...

The Cambridge Companion to Alexander Pope.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... The Cambridge Companion to Alexander Pope. Pat Rogers, editor. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]45.00 (US$85.00). xvii + 255 pages. ISBN 9878-0-521-54944-8. As the editor writes in the Introduction, Pope has shown 'surprising...

Authorship and authority.(Authorship and Authority: the Writings of James VI and I)(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Authorship and authority: the Writings of James VI and I. Jane Rickard. Manchester University Press. [pounds sterling] 60.00. xi + 241 pages. ISBN 978-0-7190-7486-8. Few historical reputations have enjoyed such a turn-round as that of James I:...

Cabinets and the Bomb.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Cabinets and the Bomb. Peter Hennessy, editor. Oxford University Press for the British Academy. [pounds sterling]19.95 p.b. 368 pages. ISBN 978-0-19-726422-5. This is the second of the Academy's Occasional Papers and is based on a Mile End...

Mirror of the World: A New History of Art.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Mirror of the World: A New History of Art. Julian Bell. Thames & Hudson [pounds sterling]24.95. 496 pages. ISBN 978-0-500-23837-0. This survey, by an author who is both an artist and a teacher of art, is meant to be a 'general introduction to...

The Winter of the World: Poems of the First World War.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... The Winter of the World: Poems of the First World War. Dominic Hibberd and John Onions, editors. Constable and Robinson. [pounds sterling]25.00. xxxvii + 362 pages. ISBN 978-1-84529-515-8. The Great War gave birth to an outpouring of poetry...

The Monarchy and the British Nation 1780 to the Present.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... The Monarchy and the British Nation 1780 to the Present. Andrzej Olechnowicz, editor. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]55.00 (US$99.00). ix + 327 pages ISBN 978-0-521-84461-1. This important collection asks two basic questions about...

Sir Francis Walsingham: A Courtier in an Age of Terror.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Sir Francis Walsingham: A Courtier in an Age of Terror. Derek Wilson. Constable. [pounds sterling]18.99. xii + 274 pages. ISBN 978-1-84529-138-9. Walsingham's place in Tudor history is due to his time as Elizabeth I's principal secretary of...

Summits: Six Meetings that Shaped the Twentieth Century..(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Summits: Six Meetings that Shaped the Twentieth Century. David Reynolds. Allen Lane. [pounds sterling]25.00. xiv + 497 pages. ISBN 978-0-713-99917-4. In an era when any meeting between politicians is a 'summit' it can be difficult to remember...

God's Architect: Pugin and the Building of Romantic Britain.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... God's Architect: Pugin and the Building of Romantic Britain. Rosemary Hill. Allen Lane. [pounds sterling]30.00. xiii + 602 pages. ISBN 978-0-713-99499-5. This excellent study is in no doubt about Pugin's importance in creating the modern...

The Ladies of Londonderry: Women and Political Patronage.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... The Ladies of Londonderry: Women and Political Patronage. Diane Urquhart. I.B. Tauris. [pounds sterling]42.00. x + 278 pages. ISBN 978-1-84511-410-7. One of the more fascinating aspects of modern British history is the survival and importance...

The Routledge Companion to Nazi Germany.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... The Routledge Companion to Nazi Germany. Roderick Stackelberg. Routledge. [pounds sterling]55.00. x + 369 pages. ISBN 978-0-415-30860-1. This guide has been written so that it can fulfil three distinct objects. Its reference section gives...

Diaries, 1971-1983. James Lees-Milne.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Diaries, 1971-1983. James Lees-Milne. Michael Bloch, editor. John Murray. [pounds sterling] 25.00. xvii + 494 pages. ISBN 9778-0-7195-6682-0. The James Lees-Milne diary industry continues apace with an abridged edition of the diaries for these...

Tracking the Ark of the Covenant: By Camel, Foot and Ancient Ford in Search of Antiquity's Greatest Treasure.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Tracking the Ark of the Covenant: By Camel, Foot and Ancient Ford in Search of Antiquity's Greatest Treasure. Charles Foster. Monarch Books. [pounds sterling] 8.99 p.b. 224 pages. ISBN 978-0-8254-6152-1. Mr Foster is one of the most interesting...

Nemesis: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Nemesis: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45. Max Hastings. HarperPress. [pounds sterling]25.00. xxvii + 674 pages. ISBN 9787-0-00-721982-7. This history of the last two years of the Second World War in the Pacific is a companion piece to the...

The Terracotta Army: China's First Emperor and the Birth of a Nation.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... The Terracotta Army: China's First Emperor and the Birth of a Nation. John Man. Bantam Press. [pounds sterling]20.00. xvi + 288 pages. ISBN 978-0-593-05929-6. The discovery of the 'terracotta army' in the 1970s was one of the most exciting...

The Decline and Fall of the British Empire 1781-1997.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... The Decline and Fall of the British Empire 1781-1997. Piers Brendon. Jonathan Cape. [pounds sterling]25.00. xxii + 793 pages. ISBN 978-0-224-06222-0. This survey of the Empire was inspired by Gibbon's history of the Roman Empire, as reflected...

British Cultural Identities.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... British Cultural Identities. Mike Storry and Peter Childs, editors. Routledge. [pounds sterling]65.00.xix + 299 pages. ISBN 978-0-415-424559-2. This is the third edition of a work first published in 1997. The key to its approach is its use of...

American Culture: An Anthology.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... American Culture: An Anthology. Anders Breidlid, Fredrik Christian Brgger, Oyvind T. Gulliksen and Torbjrn Sirevag, editors. Routledge. [pounds sterling]70.00. xxiii + 434 pages. ISBN 978-0-415-36093-7. This is a second edition of a text first...

Iron Curtain: From Stage to Cold War.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Iron Curtain: From Stage to Cold War. Patrick Wright. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]18.99. xvii + 488 pages. ISBN 978-0-19-923150-8. Prof. Wright is concerned with the 'iron curtain' both as a metaphor and a political reality. The...

Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice. Janet Malcolm.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice. Janet Malcolm. Yale University Press. [pounds sterling]16.99. vii + 229 pages. ISBN 978-0-300-12551-1. This study is a personal look at one of the most famous writing relationships in modern literary history, that...

The Complete Pompeii.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... The Complete Pompeii. Joanne Berry. Thames & Hudson. [pounds sterling]24.95. 256 pages. ISBN 978-0-500-05 150-4. It may seem presumptuous to entitle any book, 'the complete...' but with the help of 318 illustrations, of which 275 are in...

The Slave Ship: A Human History.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... The Slave Ship: A Human History. Marcus Rediker. John Murray. [pounds sterling]30.00. ix + 434 pages. ISBN 978-0-7195-6302-7. In this study, first published in the US, Prof. Rediker is not attempting yet another history of the slave trade....

Not Quite World's End: A Traveller's Tales.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Not Quite World's End: A Traveller's Tales. John Simpson. Macmillan. [pounds sterling] 20.00. xi + 468 pages. ISBN 978-1-4050-5000-5. John Simpson is now, arguably, the BBC's best known journalist and his grave pronouncements have an authority...

The Choice of Hercules: Pleasure, Duty and the Good Life in the 21st Century.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... The Choice of Hercules: Pleasure, Duty and the Good Life in the 21st Century. A.C. Grayling. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. [pounds sterling]12.99. vii + 184 pages. ISBN 978-0-297-84833-2. What Martin Tupper was to the Victorians Prof. Grayling is to...

The Unbearable Saki: The Work of H.H. Munro. Sandie Byrne. Oxford University Pess.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... The Unbearable Saki: The Work of H.H. Munro. Sandie Byrne. Oxford University Pess. [pounds sterling]19.99. xiii + 314 pages. ISBN 978-0-19-922605-4. H.H. Munro is most often remembered as the early nineteenth century writer of short stories who...

Anonymity: A Secret History of English Literature.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Anonymity: A Secret History of English Literature. John Mullan. Faber and Faber. [pounds sterling]17.99. ix + 374 pages. ISBN 978-0-571-19514-5. The publication of anonymous poetry and novels is now virtually unknown whereas it was once a...

Balfour: The Last Grandee.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Balfour: The Last Grandee. R.J.Q. Adams. John Murray. [pounds sterling]30.00. xv + 479 pages. ISBN 978-0-7195-5424-7. A.J. Bal-four remains one of the more fascinating statesmen in recent British history. As a minister he influenced the history...

Forgotten Voices of the Second World War.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Forgotten Voices of the Second World War. Max Arthur. Ebury Press. [pounds sterling]12.99. 160 pages. ISBN 978-0-09-191774-6. This volume is a sequel to the author's Forgotten Voices of the Great War and is based on the sound recordings and...

The Barefoot Emperor: An Ethiopian Tragedy.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... The Barefoot Emperor: An Ethiopian Tragedy. Philip Marsden. HarperPress. [pound sterling] 17.99. xxviii + 404 pages. ISBN 978-0-00-717345-7. This history cum biography is focused on one of Queen Victoria's 'little wars', this one set in...

Hotel: An American History.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Hotel: An American History. A.K. Sandoval-Strausz. Yale University Press.[pounds sterling]25.00. vii + 375 pages. ISBN 978-0-300-10616-9. As the author points out, the modern hotel, as opposed to the historic inn or monastic guest-room, was 'a...

Meeting in No Man's Land: Christmas 1914 and Fraternization in the Great War.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Meeting in No Man's Land: Christmas 1914 and Fraternization in the Great War. Marc Ferro, Malcolm Brown, Remy Cazals, and Olaf Mueller. Helen McPhail, translator. Constable. [pounds sterling]18.99. viii + 264 pages. ISBN 978-1-84529-513-4. This...

Clarissa Eden A Memoir: From Churchill to Eden.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Clarissa Eden A Memoir: From Churchill to Eden. Cate Haste, editor. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. [pounds sterling]20.00. xvi + 288 pages. ISBN 978-0-297-85193-6. Few people have had a better view of twentieth century British politics at the top than...

Ad Infinitum: A Biography of Latin.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Ad Infinitum: A Biography of Latin. Nicholas Ostler. HarperPress. [pounds sterling]25.00. xvii + 382 pages. ISBN 978-0-00-722175-2. As Dr Ostler points out in this magisterial history, written Latin was for more than 2000 years, 'the...

Spitfire: Portrait of a Legend.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Spitfire: Portrait of a Legend. Leo McKinstry. John Murray. [pounds sterling]20.00. x + 435 pages. ISBN 978-0-7195-6874-9. As Leo McKinstry writes, sixty years after the end of the war the Spitfire 'continues to grip the imagination of the...

Building St Paul's. James W.P. Campbell.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Building St Paul's. James W.P. Campbell. Thames & Hudson. [pounds sterling]12.95. 176 pages. ISBN 978-0-500-34244-2. In building the new St Paul's Cathedral Wren's 'willingness to experiment is... what makes St Paul's such a startling piece of...

Indulgences in Late Medieval England: Passports to Paradise?(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Indulgences in Late Medieval England: Passports to Paradise? R.N. Swanson. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]60.00 (US$120.00). xiv + 579 pages. ISBN 978-0-521-88120-3. The aim of this important study is to give greater prominence to...

Governing Hong Kong: Administrative Officers from the Nineteenth Century to the Handover to China, 1862-1997.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Governing Hong Kong: Administrative Officers from the Nineteenth Century to the Handover to China, 1862-1997. Steve Tsang. I.B. Tauris. [pounds sterling]52.50. xii + 227 pages. ISBN 978-1-84511-525-8. Mr Tsang has established himself as a...

A Dictionary of English Manuscript Terminology 1450-2000.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... A Dictionary of English Manuscript Terminology 1450-2000. Peter Beal. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]55.00. xix + 457 pages. ISBN 978-0-19-926544-2. This monumental reference work is 'a serious attempt to establish the language and...

The Cambridge Companion to Twentieth-Century English Poetry.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... The Cambridge Companion to Twentieth-Century English Poetry. Neil Corcoran, editor. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]45.00 (US$90.00). xv + 26 pages. ISBN 978-0-521-87081-8. This collection of essays had a sizeable task to achieve:...

Under Two Dictators: Prisoner of Stalin.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Under Two Dictators: Prisoner of Stalin. Margarete Buber-Neumann. Edward Fitzgerald, translator. Pimlico. [pounds sterling]17.99. xxiii + 350 pages. ISBN 978-1-845-95102-3. Margarete Buber-Neumann's was a German-born Communist who learned the...

Titanic: Victims and villains.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Titanic: Victims and Villains. Senan Molony. Tempus. [pounds sterling]14.99. 222 + i pages. ISBN 978-0-7524-4570-0. This is the author's third book on the Titanic and is really a study of how people at the time and later have perceived the...

Picturing the Bible: The Earliest Christian Art.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Picturing the Bible: The Earliest Christian Art. Jeffrey Spier et. al. Yale University Press. [pounds sterling]40.00. xvi + 309 pages. ISBN 978-0-300-11683-0. This study grew out of an exhibition, 'Picturing the Bible', held in the Kimbell Art...

Penultimate Adventures with Britannia: Personalities, Politics and Culture in Britain.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Penultimate Adventures with Britannia: Personalities, Politics and Culture in Britain. W.R. Louis, editor. I.B. Tauris. [pounds sterling]35.00. x + 320 pages. ISBN 978-1-84511-693-4. This latest collection of lectures given before the...

The Greeks and Greek Love: A Radical Reappraisal of Homosexuality in Ancient Greece.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... The Greeks and Greek Love: A Radical Reappraisal of Homosexuality in Ancient Greece. James Davidson. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. [pounds sterling]30.00. xxii + 634 pages. ISBN 978-0-297-81997-4. This is a study based on an enormous amount of work....

The Voices of the Dead: Stalin's Great Terror in the 1930s.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... The Voices of the Dead: Stalin's Great Terror in the 1930s. Hiroaki Kuromiya. Yale University Press. [pounds streling] 19.99. viii + 295 pages. ISBN 978-0-300-12389-0. This is Prof. Kuromiya's third book on the Stalinist regime in which he is...

Cathedral: The Great English Cathedrals and the World That Made Them: 600-1540.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Cathedral: The Great English Cathedrals and the World that Made Them: 600-1540. Jon Cannon. Constable. [pounds sterling]30.00. 544 pages. ISBN 978-1-841 19-841-5. To mediaeval man there was 'no other experience that could match the impact of...

Standing Operating Procedure: A War Story.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Standing Operating Procedure: A War Story. Philip Gourevitch and Errol Morris. Picador. [pounds sterling]16.99. ix + 286 pages. ISBN 978-0-330-45200-7. The innocuous title hides an expose of one of the US's greatest scandals - the carryings on...

Free Trade Nation: Commerce, Consumption, and Civil Society in Modern Britain.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Free Trade Nation: Commerce, Consumption, and Civil Society in Modern Britain. Frank Trentmann. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]25.00. xiv + 450 pages. ISBN 978-0-19-920920-0. As Prof. Trentmann points out, 'free trade' was Britian's...

Dunkirk: Retreat to Victory.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Dunkirk: Retreat to Victory. Julian Thompson. Sidgwick & Jackson. [pounds sterling]20.00. xiv + 338 pages. ISBN 978-0-283-07021-1. Major General Thompson, who was a commander in the Falklands, provides a fresh look at this famous event. He is...