Contemporary Review back issues from June 2005:
A 2005 general election Labour campaign diary.
Jun 01, 2005; ... AT the last general election in 2001, Solihull, a pleasant West Midland town situated in the geographical centre of the country, eight miles from Birmingham, had a Conservative majority of about 9,500. It was a true blue area. The Liberal Democrats were in second place and Labour came ...
Chechnya: the Achilles heel of Russia--Part three.
Jun 01, 2005; ... Editor's Note: In last month's issue Dr Alec Rasizade analysed the Chechen wars of 1994 and 1999. In this final part he reflects on the loss of Maskhadov, the new radical leaders of the resistance and the future of the region. Chechen Resistance and the Death of Maskhadov ...
Riots and remembrance: rising tensions between China and Japan.
Jun 01, 2005; ... THREE busloads of paramilitary troops were guarding the Japanese Embassy in Beijing in April after thousands of demonstrators threw bottles, stones and eggs at the building in the biggest street protests against Japan since relations between China and Japan were normalized in 1972 ....
Google and access to the world's intellectual heritage.(Eighteenth Century Collections Online)
Jun 01, 2005; ... I was recently researching the educational views of Vicesimus Knox (1752-1821), headmaster of Tonbridge School, Kent, for thirty-four years. My knowledge of Knox was relatively scant though I knew that his views on liberal education and on the education of females were advanced. Knox was a ...
John Hewitt: a poet of the Antrim Glens.(Biography)
Jun 01, 2005; ... JOHN HEWITT was a poet who took considerable solace and satisfaction from the Glens of Antrim in Northern Ireland. The beauty and serenity of this impressive landscape stirred his imagination and inspired him to produce many collections of engaging and thought-provoking verse. In this ...
Vietnam: yesterday, today and tomorrow.
Jun 01, 2005; ... IN March 2005 I returned to Vietnam for the first time since I was there doing research for a doctorate during the war in South Vietnam in 1974. The purpose of this article is to recall the country's history, to look at the state of Vietnam today, and to provide two contrasting ...
Art notes: new Carracci at the National Gallery.(Annibale Carracci, Holy Family painting)(Brief Article)
Jun 01, 2005; ... The National Gallery should be congratulated on its acquisition of Annibale Carracci's Holy Family, painted on copper for Cardinal Alessandro Montalto in about 1600, and later lost for many years before reappearing at a London auction in the summer of 2003. The small picture, which is only ...
The Croglin vampire.(Croglin Grange)
Jun 01, 2005; ... IT was the inimitable and irrepressible Augustus Hare (1834-1903) intrepid Victorian Euro-trotter and aristo-hunting prototype of the late James Lees-Milne, who brought us, in the fourth volume of his six-decker autobiography, The Story of My Life, 1896-1900, the only known tidings of the ...
Out in the cold again: the woods of northern Minnesota.
Jun 01, 2005; ... A couple of years ago I went on an expedition to the North Pole. We skied over the sea ice, bridged the leads and clambered over the sastrugi, and my arrogance and incompetence lost me a finger-end to frostbite. When we got to the Pole we pitched our tent, drank whisky, smoked Cuban ...
The crisis in France's welfare state.(France in Crisis: Welfare, Inequality and Globalization since 1980)(Book Review)
Jun 01, 2005; ... France in Crisis: Welfare, Inequality and Globalization since 1980. Timothy B. Smith. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]40.00 (US$65.00). xi + 296 pages. ISBN 0-521-84414-2. Among the rich Western nations, France has the poorest record of job creation and the most ...
Gordon brown under the hatchet.(Gordon Brown)(Book Review)
Jun 01, 2005; ... Gordon Brown. Tom Bower. HarperCollins. [pounds sterling]20.00. xix + 492 pages. ISBN 0-00-717540-X. Gordon Brown is clearly not a simple character to come to grips with, either as a politician or as a private individual. The somewhat fraught relationships that he has with a ...
The media, politics and modern democracy.(What the Media Are Doing to Our Politics)(Book Review)
Jun 01, 2005; ... What the Media Are Doing to Our Politics. John Lloyd. Constable. [pounds sterling]12.99. vi + 218 pages. ISBN 1-84119-900-1. 'The real question is, What kind of people are we?' This question is not John Lloyd's, but Mort Rosenblum's. It appears at the end of Who Stole the News?, ...
Reginald Maudling--from bright future to sad end.(Reggie: The Life of Reginald Maudling)(Book Review)
Jun 01, 2005; ... Reggie: The Life of Reginald Maudling. Lewis Baston. Sutton Publishing. [pounds sterling]25.00. xvi + 604 pages. ISBN 0-7509-2924-3. This is a story of a man with a bright future in British politics who held high offices before a degrading end. After wartime service in the RAF ...
The special relationship under L.B.J. and Wilson.(A 'Special Relationship'?: Harold Wilson, Lyndon B. Johnson and Anglo-American Relations 'At the Summit', 1964-68)(Book Review)
Jun 01, 2005; ... A 'Special Relationship'? Harold Wilson, Lyndon B. Johnson and Anglo-American Relations 'At the Summit', 1964-68. Jonathan Colman. Manchester University Press. [pounds sterling]50.00. vii + 192 pages. ISBN 0-7190-7010-4. There are two perspectives of Anglo-American relations in ...
Lucia Joyce--the dancer at the Wake.(Lucia Joyce: To Dance in the Wake)(Book Review)
Jun 01, 2005; ... Lucia Joyce: To Dance in the Wake. Carol Loeb Shloss. Bloomsbury. [pounds sterling]20.00, 560 pages. ISBN 0-7475-7033-7. The name Lucia derives from the Italian word for light and Lucia Anna, James Joyce's daughter, was the light of her near-blind father's life. But she, blinded ...
Arthur Miller--this very American writer.(Arthur Miller: A Critical Study)(Book Review)
Jun 01, 2005; ... Arthur Miller: A Critical Study. Christopher Bigsby. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]55.00. 550 pages. ISBN 0-521-84416-9. With the death of Arthur Miller all consideration of his work at this time gains a poignancy in place of intended celebration. The Methuselah ...
The world of paperbacks.(books)
Jun 01, 2005 ... HARPER PERENNIAL has brought out Iain Finlayson's Browning: A Private Life ([pounds sterling]15.00) which was praised in this magazine as a 'well, often beautifully, written' biography with 'a considerable amount of worthwhile original thought'. A second biography is Benjamin Woolley's The ...
The Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century English Literature.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
Jun 01, 2005 ... The Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century English Literature. Laura Marcus and Peter Nicholls, editors. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]95.00 (US$160.00). xiv + 886 pages. ISBN 0-521-82077-4. This latest volume in the new Cambridge History of English Literature recognises the ...
A Century of Premiers: Salisbury to Blair.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
Jun 01, 2005 ... A Century of Premiers: Salisbury to Blair. Dick Leonard. Palgrave Macmillan. [pounds sterling]55.00. viii + 383 pages. ISBN 0-333-91839-8. It has been argued that the list of Prime Ministers from Lord Salisbury to Tony Blair refutes the theory of evolution. Salisbury led the government of ...
Obsessive Genius: The Inner World of Marie Curie.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
Jun 01, 2005 ... Obsessive Genius: The Inner World of Marie Curie. Barbara Goldsmith. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. [pounds sterling]14.99. 256 pages. 0-297-84767-8. Marie Curie remains the only woman who was twice awarded the Nobel Prize, for her work with radioactivity and then for her discovery of radium and ...
Robert Louis Stevenson.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
Jun 01, 2005 ... Robert Louis Stevenson. Claire Harman. HarperCollins. [pounds sterling]25.00. xix + 503 pages. ISBN 0-00-711321-8. The author, who has already prepared editions of Stevenson's Essays and Poems and Selected Stories, describes Stevenson as 'a popular author but never a canonical one'. He was ...
The Most Beautiful Gardens in the World.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
Jun 01, 2005 ... The Most Beautiful Gardens in the World. Alain le Toquin, photographer and Jacques Bosser, text. Harry N. Abrams. [pounds sterling]35.00. 260 pages. ISBN 0-8109-5584-9. This beautifully illustrated book (with 152 illustrations in full colour) is, in the words of Michel Baridon in the ...
I Would Not Be Forgotten: The Life and Work of Robert Stephen Hawker 1803-1875.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
Jun 01, 2005 ... I Would Not Be Forgotten: The Life and Work of Robert Stephen Hawker 1803-1875. Patrick Hutton. Tabb House. vi + 250 pages. ISBN 1-873951-44-2. 'Hawker of Morwenstow' is one of the more colourful and engaging of Victorian clergymen to have remained in the public memory into the new ...
Armageddon: The Battle for Germany 1944-45.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
Jun 01, 2005 ... Armageddon: The Battle for Germany 1944-45. Max Hastings. Macmillan. [pounds sterling]25.00. xxiv + 664 pages. 0-333-90836-8. This study of the last two years of the Second World War may be seen as a sequel to the author's earlier book, Overlord. He is concerned with how and why German ...
The Welfare State in Britain since 1945.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
Jun 01, 2005 ... The Welfare State in Britain since 1945. Rodney Lowe. Palgrave Macmillan. [pounds sterling]49.50. xiii + 513 pages. ISBN 1-4039-1193-2. The first edition of Prof. Lowe's examination of the modern welfare state was published in 1993. Since then much has happened and this new edition takes ...
Waterloo: Napoleon's Last Gamble.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
Jun 01, 2005 ... Waterloo: Napoleon's Last Gamble. Andrew Roberts. HarperCollins. [pounds sterling]12.99. 143 pages. ISBN 0-00-719075-1. This short history is part of Harper Collins' 'Making History' series. The author is in no doubt that, despite the many books already published on the battle, 'there is ...
Voltaire: The Universal Man.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
Jun 01, 2005 ... Voltaire: The Universal Man. Derek Parker. Sutton Publishing. [pounds sterling]20.00. xv + 240 pages. ISBN 0-7509-3440-9. Voltaire, the pen-name of Francois-Marie Arouet, has had quite a good press since his death in 1778. He is widely regarded as a model of the large-hearted libertarian ...
On Literature.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
Jun 01, 2005 ... On Literature. Umberto Eco. Martin McLaughlin, translator. Secker & Warburg. [pounds sterling]17.99. viii + 335 pages. ISBN 0-436-21017-7. In this volume the novelist and essayist has collected his occasional writings and papers delivered at academic conferences which are concerned with ...
The Diaries of Charles Greville.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
Jun 01, 2005 ... The Diaries of Charles Greville. Edward Pearce with Deanna Pearce, editors. Pimlico. [pounds sterling]18.99. xviii + 358 pages. ISBN 1-8441-3404-0. In their introduction the editors are right to claim that Greville, a clerk to the Privy Council from 1821 to 1859, is 'as interesting, vivid ...
Bury the Chains: The British Struggle to Abolish Slavery.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
Jun 01, 2005 ... Bury the Chains: The British Struggle to Abolish Slavery. Adam Hochschild. Macmillan. [pounds sterling]20.00. xi + 467 pages. ISBN 0-333-90591-5. This study, first published in the United States, is the story of the Society for the Suppression of the Slave Trade founded in London in 1787 ....
The Fall of Baghdad.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
Jun 01, 2005 ... The Fall of Baghdad. Jon Lee Anderson. Little, Brown. [pounds sterling]20.00. x + 389 pages. ISBN 0-316-72990-6. Mr Anderson's book, first published in the United States, is a first-hand account not just of the second Iraq war but of Iraq under Saddam Hussein. He begins with an Iraqi exile ...
Madame de Stael.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
Jun 01, 2005 ... Madame de Stael. Maria Fairweather. Constable. [pounds sterling]25.00. xxii + 522 pages. ISBN 1-84119-814-1. As the author says, 'writing a life of Madame de Stael is a little like trying to control a coach driven by several horses each one pulling in a different direction'. Germaine ...
The Vote: How It was Won and How It was Undermined.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
Jun 01, 2005 ... The Vote: How It was Won and How It was Undermined. Paul Foot. Viking. [pounds sterling]25.00. xiv + 506 pages. ISBN 0-670-91536-X. The late Paul Foot, famed for his radical socialist journalism, was part of the great Foot dynasty of Labour intellectuals, politicians and writers. Like most ...
Mary Seacole: The Charismatic Black Nurse Who Became a Heroine of the Crimea.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
Jun 01, 2005 ... Mary Seacole: The Charismatic Black Nurse Who Became a Heroine of the Crimea. Jane Robinson. Constable. [pounds sterling]12.99 p.b. ISBN 1-84119-677-0. The efforts of the intelligentsia to convince the British people that they now live in a new, 'multiracial' country takes many interesting ...
The Cambridge Companion to W.H. Auden.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
Jun 01, 2005 ... The Cambridge Companion to W.H. Auden. Stan Smith, editor. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]45.00 (US$65.00). xxi + 261 pages. ISBN 0-521-82962-3. As the editor writes in his Introduction, Auden's verse has the ability 'to sing from the 'resonant heart' with words that over the ...
The Habit of Victory: The Story of the Royal Navy 1545 to 1945.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
Jun 01, 2005 ... The Habit of Victory: The Story of the Royal Navy 1545 to 1945. Captain Peter Hore. Sidgwick & Jackson. [pounds sterling]25.00. ix + 450 pages. ISBN 0-283-07312-8. The author, himself a retired Royal Navy captain, has set out here not to write another history of the Navy but 'to tell a ...
The Thames.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
Jun 01, 2005 ... The Thames: England's River. Jonathan Schneer. Little, Brown. [pounds sterling]18.99. xv + 330 pages. ISBN 0-316-86139-1. The book is, the author claims, the first history of the Thames to cover its entire length and throughout recorded history and the first to cover all aspects of the ...
Christ's: A Cambridge College Over Five Centuries.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
Jun 01, 2005 ... Christ's: A Cambridge College Over Five Centuries. David Reynolds, editor. Macmillan. [pounds sterling]25.00. xvi+ 266 pages. ISBN 0-333-98988-0. Christ's, famous in part for its role in spreading Puritanism in the seventeenth century, began life in 1505 when Lady Margaret Beaufort, aided ...
War and the Media: Reportage and Propaganda, 1900-2003.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
Jun 01, 2005 ... War and the Media: Reportage and Propaganda, 1900-2003. Mark Connelly and David Welch, editors. I.B. Tauris. [pounds sterling]39.50. xxi + 304 pages. ISBN 1-86064-959-9. This collection is based on a conference sponsored by the University of Kent's Centre for the Study of Propaganda held ...
Carnegie: 'The Richest Man in the World'.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
Jun 01, 2005 ... Carnegie: 'The Richest Man in the World'. Raymond Lamont-Brown. Sutton Publishing. [pounds sterling]20.00. x + 246 pages. ISBN 0-7509-3370-4. Andrew Carnegie remains the best example of the rags-to-riches story from a century which loved them. Born in poverty in Dumferline in 1835, he died ...
The Siege of Derry.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
Jun 01, 2005 ... The Siege of Derry. Carlo Gebler. Little, Brown. [pounds sterling]18.99. xvii + 364 pages. ISBN 0-316-86128-6. The 105-day siege of Londonderry which began in December 1688 remains the most important in British history. Because the Protestant city held out against the besieging army of ...
England and the Spanish Armada: The Necessary Quarrel.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
Jun 01, 2005 ... England and the Spanish Armada: The Necessary Quarrel. James McDermott. Yale University Press. [pounds sterling]25.00. xvi + 411 pages. ISBN 0-300-10698-X. As the subtitle indicates, the author argues that earlier historical events meant a battle of some sort must in time have occurred ...
Hostages to Fortune: Winston Churchill and the Loss of the Prince of Wales and Repulse.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
Jun 01, 2005 ... Hostages to Fortune: Winston Churchill and the Loss of the Prince of Wales and Repulse. Arthur Nicholson. Sutton Publishing. [pounds sterling]19.99. xxii + 234 pages. ISBN 0-7509-3948-6. There have been several new studies which re-examine the role of Winston Churchill during the last War ....