Matthieu Aikins’s first book at times reads like a work of fiction, and is all the richer for that. His account of the brutal 7,000-kilometre journey taken through a hostile landscape by him and Omar, an Afghan refugee, is punctuated with feelings of hope and despair. Can the travellers go on? Will they complete their […]
In 2017, the behaviour of the Chinese state in Xinjiang took a lurch towards inhumanity with a crackdown on ‘extremism’, as the authorities chose to describe it. It led to the imprisonment of probably over one million Uyghurs and other Muslims and to the construction of a complex network of internment camps and forced-labour institutions. […]
Rosie Johnston could have made rather a lot of money by writing a sensational account of her prison experiences and the events that led up to her being sent down. Instead she insisted on writing, for very much less money, this scrupulously sensation-free book, which she modestly hopes ‘might be of help to other female […]
It may be a truth, universally acknowledged, that riches do not necessarily bring happiness; but one nevertheless feels they might alleviate some of the more irritating burdens. Anthony Sampson will almost certainly have hit the jackpot with The Midas Touch. Sampson is one of the most distinguished of this country’s post-war journalists. His early work […]
This book is Gorbachev’s attempt to explain two phenomena; the economic restructuring of the USSR and the pressing need for a drastic reassessment in superpower relations. It is divided into two parts of exactly equal length and is written with a vitality and enthusiasm now taken as characteristic of the Genera l Secretary. Unfortunately the […]
In my family the blame for the troubles in Northern Ireland has always been pinned squarely on Great Aunt Mary. She was a dreadful, interfering woman who, having driven her husband into an early grave, set about disrupting the domestic tranquility of her relations. Wherever she went she would act as a catalyst for long […]
This book is sub-titled ‘The first impartial account by an insider, still living in China, of the background to events in Tiananmen Square.’ It is in fact a political thesis – and really not a new one – outlining the long struggle between hardliners and ‘reformers’ in the Chinese Communist Party. The author and translator […]
There’s a kettle the cover. Not your furred up old Swan though. This kettle is the hip kettle, the in kettle, the de rigeur, shibbolethic, totemic kettle. The kettle that you have seen in those shops that sell objets like matte black torches, Swiss Army knives and condom holsters for Filofaxes. The kettle is stainless […]
The author of this book is a touch nervous. He accompanies the review copy with a letter which tells of his Doubts About Reviewers. ‘I am quite accustomed to reviews of books about the rich (especially my last one) which consist mainly of vituperative attacks on them as a class…’ William Davis is already the […]
Books that are well-informed, well-written and well-timed are rare commodities. It is disappointing that Michael Simmons’s sketch of East Germany, or rather the German Democratic Republic (GDR) – depending on which side of the fence (perhaps ‘wall’ in this case) you come down on – is mainly well-timed. Originally conceived to coincide with the fortieth […]
With the reverberations of October’s stock market crash still ringing in their ears, analysts are saying that only the expert intervention of the government can transform the slump from gentle landscaping into a proper earthquake on the scale of Black Monday, November 1987. The worst run on the exchanges since the Thirties, it recalled the […]
Robert Reid follows his acclaimed Land of Lost Content, about the Luddite revolt of 1812, with this fascinating account of Peterloo – a cavalry charge into a crowd in St Peter’s Field, Manchester, in 1819. This was an act of ‘the most repressive regime in modern British history’. Peterloo was followed by the notorious Six […]
No one denies that the universities are having a rough time. No one can deny, either, that having to listen to oily homilies from Kenneth Baker and Robert Jackson must be more than body and soul and brain can bear. (John MacGregor, the first member of the staff of New Society to make it to […]
‘Shut your gob, Jason you little blighter, or I’ll shove your Big Mac down your bleedin’ throat. Kids these days. Who’d have ’em? Jason get them french fries off Kylie’s ’ead. Give over or I’ll belt you. Hang on. We’ve got an audience. Who’s that stuck-up bag starin’ at us over there? Something wrong with […]
Stewart Lamont has written an intelligent analysis of the present state of relationships between church and state across the world, homing in with a plea for disestablishment of the Church of England. As befits someone described in his blurb ‘as Scotland’s leading writer and broadcaster on religious affairs’, Lamont’s sympathies are with church rather than […]
In 1988, NBC TV’s John Chancellor asked Richard Nixon how history would remember him. ‘History will treat me fairly. Historians probably won’t because most historians are on the left.’ Sadly, Stephen Ambrose does not include this illuminating exchange in the final volume of his three-part Nixon biography, but I hope that its subject is suitably […]
Robert Reid follows his acclaimed Land of Lost Content, about the Luddite revolt of 1812, with this fascinating account of Peterloo – a cavalry charge into a crowd in St Peter’s Field, Manchester, in 1819. This was an act of ‘the most repressive regime in modern British history’. Peterloo was followed by the notorious Six […]
Max Hastings has written what for me is a marvellous book. Enthusiasm is at a discount in our colourless age. One warms to Hastings because he is an unashamed enthusiast. He may not dispel the hostility of those who consider shooters and hunters as latter-day barbarians; but at least they may catch a glimmer of […]
In 1992 Lord Hailsham, one of our oldest elder statesmen, had a spiritual crisis. He became disillusioned with the state of the world around him. Since he was eighty-five at the time this was something of an achievement; some of us reach the same point when more than fifty years younger. It was not merely […]
There is a long history of FBI meddling in the affairs of public intellectuals in America, and it’s not a happy one. State surveillance of writers and political activists (such as Martin Luther King Jr) became an obsession under the bizarre and dictatorial leadership of J Edgar Hoover, who served as director from its inception […]
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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