Michael Prowse
Capital Punishment
The Age of Consent: A Manifesto For A New World Order
By George Monbiot
Flamingo 288pp £15.99 order from our bookshop
THE ANTI-GLOBALISATION movement has never had any trouble articulating what it is against. It opposes unfettered capitahsm, especially when it crosses national fi-ontiers, and the multinational corporation, which it regards as amoral and predatory. But it has always had difficulty in explaining what it isfor. An unstable mix of anarchsm, protectionism and Marxism does not constitute a credible set of principles for a new world order.
George Monbiot, the Guardian columnist, knows this. And his attempt to be constructive has led him in some surprising directions. Unlike many of his allies in the 'global justice movement', he no longer even opposes globalisation. The problem is not globalisation per re, he argues, but its uneven character: the
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
'For all his reputation as the great theorist of democracy, Tocqueville was never an enthusiast for universal suffrage or the kind of electoral politics that went with it.'
Alan Ryan asks what Alexis de Tocqueville's ideas can teach us today.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/oui-the-people
'Within two days of arriving at the retreat, he is called away to attend the funeral of a friend killed in the Charlie Hebdo attacks ... Carrère is soon divorced and suicidal, interned in a psychiatric institution where he must slowly rebuild his life.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/lunge-twist-pose
'Foreign-policy pundits, then as now, tended to lack subtlety, even if they could be highly articulate about a nation they did not like very much.'
Read Lucy Wooding's review of Clare Jackson's 'Devil-Land', which has won the @WolfsonHistory prize.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/the-view-from-across-the-channel