Graham Stewart
Global Breakdown
Globalisation, Democracy and Terrorism
By Eric Hobsbawm
Little, Brown 184pp £17.99 order from our bookshop
‘There are words nobody likes to be associated with in public, such as racism and imperialism. On the other hand, there are others for which everyone is anxious to demonstrate enthusiasm, such as mothers and the environment. Democracy is one of these.’ So writes Eric Hobsbawm, who has spent much of his long and distinguished life circumscribed by the title ‘Marxist historian’.
It seemed a bit cocky back in 1989 when Francis Fukuyama postulated that Communism’s collapse meant that, ideologically speaking, the world had ‘reached the end of history’. And it would be surprising if Professor Hobsbawm had now, upon his ninetieth birthday, suddenly concluded that liberal democrats had indeed won 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
'What Bower brings sharply into focus here is how lonely Johnson is, how dependent on excitement and applause to stave off recurring depression.'
From the archive: Michael White analyses the life and leadership of Boris Johnson.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/crisis-what-crisis-3
'Sometimes, dragons’ greed can have comic consequences, including indigestion. We read the 1685 tale of the dragon of Wantley, whose weakness is, comically, his arse. The hero delivers a lethal kick to the dragon’s behind, and the dragon dies.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/terrors-of-the-sky
'We must all "shoot down the canard", McManus writes, that the World Cup is going to a nation "that doesn’t know or appreciate the Beautiful Game".'
Barnaby Crowcroft on the rise of Qatar.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/full-of-gas