Adrian Weale
Blowin’ in the Wind
War and Peacekeeping: Personal Reflections on Conflict and Lasting Peace
By Martin Bell
Oneworld 336pp £20
I’ve never met Martin Bell but he’s been bobbing about in my life for so long – first as a television news reporter, then as an independent MP and now as a certified national treasure – that he feels almost like a personal friend, a sort of David Attenborough or Michael Palin of the combat zones. But having read War and Peacekeeping, his discursive memoir of his career in international conflict, I realised that, in reality, I knew very little about him.
My principal memory of Bell is of his coverage for BBC News of the Balkan conflicts of the early 1990s, when he was known as the ‘Man in the White Suit’. His reporting was front and centre in our understanding of what was happening in the former Yugoslavia. In 1992, Bell was seriously wounded by shrapnel while delivering a piece to camera in Sarajevo. He was also responsible for focusing our collective attention on the deployment of the British Army as part of the United Nations Protection Force and was a trenchant critic of the United Nations’ mandate for inaction, a ridiculously supine response to the gross atrocities committed by all of the warring factions.
Of course, his career consisted of much more than just reporting from the Balkans. In the late 1950s he did National Service as a junior NCO in the Suffolk Regiment, serving in Cyprus during the EOKA insurgency. He also gained a first-class degree in English literature at Cambridge, after which
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
Knowledge of Sufism increased markedly with the publication in 1964 of The Sufis, by Idries Shah. Nowadays his writings, much like his father’s, are dismissed for their Orientalism and inaccuracy.
@fitzmorrissey investigates who the Shahs really were.
Fitzroy Morrissey - Sufism Goes West
Fitzroy Morrissey: Sufism Goes West - Empire’s Son, Empire’s Orphan: The Fantastical Lives of Ikbal and Idries Shah by Nile Green
literaryreview.co.uk
Rats have plagued cities for centuries. But in Baltimore, researchers alighted on one surprising solution to the problem of rat infestation: more rats.
@WillWiles looks at what lessons can be learned from rat ecosystems – for both rats and humans.
Will Wiles - Puss Gets the Boot
Will Wiles: Puss Gets the Boot - Rat City: Overcrowding and Urban Derangement in the Rodent Universes of John B ...
literaryreview.co.uk
Twisters features destructive tempests and blockbuster action sequences.
@JonathanRomney asks what the real danger is in Lee Isaac Chung's disaster movie.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/eyes-of-the-storm