Jonathan Fenby
Information is Power
The Geopolitics of Information
By Anthony Smith
Faber & Faber 192pp £6.95
A major international debate has been going on in recent years on the way the world informs itself about itself. For Anthony Smith, a hardened observer of the international media scene, the division between rich and poor nations of the world in the matter of information has reached a point of crisis. His book sets out to describe how this crisis has come about and to identify possible areas of agreement between those who defend the existing world information network as the most efficient and libertarian way of organizing the flow of news and data, and those who see it as an imperialistic system designed to perpetuate the post-colonial subjection of developing nations to an alien Western culture.
Mr Smith manages to end his brief survey on a reasonably up-beat note. Looking to the electronic revolution in communications which is already with us, he expresses the belief that ‘ it must surely be within the power of governments and in the long-term interests of corporations to see that
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
‘The Second World War was won in Oxford. Discuss.’
@RankinNick gives the question his best shot.
Nicholas Rankin - We Shall Fight in the Buttery
Nicholas Rankin: We Shall Fight in the Buttery - Oxford’s War 1939–1945 by Ashley Jackson
literaryreview.co.uk
For the first time, all of Sylvia Plath’s surviving prose, a massive body of stories, articles, reviews and letters, has been gathered together in a single volume.
@FionaRSampson sifts it for evidence of how the young Sylvia became Sylvia Plath.
Fiona Sampson - Changed in a Minute
Fiona Sampson: Changed in a Minute - The Collected Prose of Sylvia Plath by Peter K Steinberg (ed)
literaryreview.co.uk
The ruling class has lost its sprezzatura.
On porky rolodexes and the persistence of elite reproduction, for the @Lit_Review: