William Palmer
The Road To Hell
Devastating Eden: The Search For Utopia In America
By Brian Thompson
HarperCollins 320pp £20
IN THE LAST century - under the three large-scale schemes to improve and regulate humanity led by Messrs Mao. Stalin and Hitler - many millions of innocent men. women and children were murdered. slavery was reintroduced, and whole cultures and peoples' were destroyed. Brim Thompson's new book describes an earlier and less disastrous experiment in human perfectibility.
Most people have heard of Robert Owen and think of him as some sort of early socialist and philanthropist; Devastating Eden shows that he was a rather different figure. He was born in 1771, left school at ten, and became a draper's assistant. Through single-minded hard work he became an
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In 1524, hundreds of thousands of peasants across Germany took up arms against their social superiors.
Peter Marshall investigates the causes and consequences of the German Peasants’ War, the largest uprising in Europe before the French Revolution.
Peter Marshall - Down with the Ox Tax!
Peter Marshall: Down with the Ox Tax! - Summer of Fire and Blood: The German Peasants’ War by Lyndal Roper
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The Soviet double agent Oleg Gordievsky, who died yesterday, reviewed many books on Russia & spying for our pages. As he lived under threat of assassination, books had to be sent to him under ever-changing pseudonyms. Here are a selection of his pieces:
Literary Review - For People Who Devour Books
Book reviews by Oleg Gordievsky
literaryreview.co.uk
The Soviet Union might seem the last place that the art duo Gilbert & George would achieve success. Yet as the communist regime collapsed, that’s precisely what happened.
@StephenSmithWDS wonders how two East End gadflies infiltrated the Eastern Bloc.
Stephen Smith - From Russia with Lucre
Stephen Smith: From Russia with Lucre - Gilbert & George and the Communists by James Birch
literaryreview.co.uk