Most of us will never have been to a Tupperware party, but we’ll still have an idea of what that phrase means: it’s a form of ‘multi-level marketing’ (MLM) in which top salesmen recruit ‘downlines’ of other salesmen, who recruit local agents to sell a product, whatever it may be, direct to consumers, who are […]
Patrick Diamond and Giles Radice begin their thought-provoking book with the biblical adage that ‘if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand’. They assert that this ‘provides essential counsel for any political party that aspires to win elections and govern in a liberal democracy’. This axiom, of course, holds true for all political parties. However, there is no doubt that ever since 1929, when for the first time in its history the Labour Party won the largest number of seats in Parliament, it has
The period between putting a book to bed and its publication date is a time of high anxiety for an author, especially one writing about politics or the economy. There is always the fear that one’s analysis and argument will be rendered irrelevant by events, or even entirely invalidated. Edward Chancellor can sleep easily. His […]
Nothing about this book is more remarkable than the fact that its author is in his hundredth year. Henry Kissinger is an extraordinary survivor. As a Jewish teenager he fled Nazi Germany, returning there with the US army during the war. He became a professor at Harvard but succumbed to the lure of Washington, where […]
In his whistlestop tour of authoritarian leaders, the Financial Times correspondent Gideon Rachman asks what the world’s strongmen have in common and why so many of them now exist. His archetype is the founding father of modern despotism, Vladimir Putin, in whose wake have come to power a dozen or so cruel, socially conservative nationalists, […]
With the gradual but remorseless roll-out of sanctions against those ‘oligarchs’ who have enriched themselves over the past decades largely through their political connections to the Kremlin, the scale of their luxury lifestyles has been definitively exposed. Megayachts have been seized, bank accounts frozen and entire football clubs effectively impounded. Roman Abramovich, probably the most […]
In the introduction to the first volume of Democracy in America (1835), Alexis de Tocqueville famously declared that an ‘irresistible revolution’ was sweeping America and would eventually convulse Europe and the world. That powerful movement had been under way for centuries, he believed, and had as its consequence an ever-expanding ‘equality of conditions’, the progress […]
When sociologists and political theorists write history, the effect is often like drinking skimmed milk instead of the full-fat variety. The quirks of history are absent, rather like the cream. In The Great Recoil, however, the sociologist Paolo Gerbaudo provides a rich helping of recent history. His brilliant book should be essential reading for those […]
There has been a tectonic shift in the world of investment in the past half-century. It has probably passed the average lay person by, but trillions of pounds of investors’ cash has flowed out of so-called ‘active’ funds – ones that are overseen by handsomely rewarded fund managers, who are supposed to use their brain […]
This book appears to owe its existence to Amazon, surely one of the world’s greatest monuments to capitalism. At a conference in Seattle in the autumn of 2018, Martin Vander Weyer was offered a choice of recreational trips and plumped for a visit to Amazon’s headquarters. After all, he relished the astonishing convenience the company […]
The events of Black Wednesday described in this fascinating book happened twenty-five years ago. They had serious repercussions for the political path of Europe and the UK, as well as for the careers of the people involved. Certainly for Norman Lamont, who had taken over as Chancellor of the Exchequer from John Major two years […]
My Life, Our Times is a Big Clunking Fist of a political autobiography. It demonstrates Gordon Brown’s strengths and exposes his frailties. The book is well written, sometimes drily humorous and at moments gripping, not least when he turns to the subject of his personal tragedies. It makes a powerful case for the positive contributions […]
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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