Reviewed by Greg Houle Long relegated to history’s vast nether regions of obscurity, the twentieth president of the United States, James A. Garfield is best known for two things: he was the last of the American presidents to be born in a log cabin (in Ohio in 1831), and he was the second American president […]
Red Heat: Alex Von Tunzelmann
Alex Von Tunzelmann serves up a thrilling take on the Cold War. Reviewed by Vikki Littlemore Notwithstanding the racy title, it’s possible for Alex Von Tunzelmann’s Red Heat, a substantially detailed account of politics in the Caribbean, to appear intimidatingly opaque, or Everest-like, to the non-expert reader. Halfway down the first page, however, the fear […]
Monster’s Ball: Trouble in the Congo
Greg Houle reviews Jason Stearns’ troubled history of the Congo Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa. In one of the final chapters of Jason K. Stearns’ significant new book Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War […]
Coast Guards: Laurent Gbagbo and the French
US Senator James Inhofe equates French involvement in Côte d’Ivoire with a history of colonialism. Greg Houle argues why he’s wrong For somebody who constantly boasts about his knowledge and understanding of the African continent, US Senator James Inhofe (R – Oklahoma) sounds shockingly naïve when addressing the recent events in Ivory Coast which has […]
Guernica Magazine
“Guernica is an award-winning magazine of art and ideas. In its short time online, it has grown from one of the web’s best-kept secrets to one of its most acclaimed new magazines.” 01 Guernica: Launched in 2004 by New York-based writers Joel Whitney and Michael Archer, Guernica is an online journal of original creative and […]
YouGov and Political Metrics
The internet has long promised a golden age of metrics, online polling organisation YouGov is hoping to track our political opinions “YouGov is the authoritative measure of public opinion and consumer behaviour. It is our ambition to supply a live stream of continuous, accurate data and insight into what people are thinking and doing all […]
Eric Hobsbawm: How to Change the World: Tales of Marx and Marxism
Reviewed by Jacob Knowles-Smith In the week after Michael Foot, socialist and former-Labour Party leader, died I encountered a veteran taxi-driver early one morning in Liverpool. What started as mere headshaking and tutting at the fellow revellers eventually became a discourse on the political traditions of Liverpool and the state of Britain as a whole. […]
An Interview With Jeanette Hewitt
Jeanette Hewitt Is the author of Freedom First Peace Later, a novel about life in Crossmaglen, Northern Ireland, against the backdrop of Republican activity. The book was first published in December by BlueWood. and has been submitted for The Orwell Prize 2011. In 2008, Jeanette Hewitt won the silver award for the Author v Author […]
Michael Foot: The Uncollected Michael Foot – Essays Old and New
Ben Granger Mention the name Michael Foot and listen out for the automatic sneer. A rolling of eyes at a “disastrous leader”, accompanied no doubt with devilishly cutting asides about donkey jackets, walking sticks or Worzel Gummidge, delete as appropriate. Gerald Kaufman’s deathless Wildeanism chiding Foot’s 1983 Labour Manifesto as “the longest suicide note in […]
The Literary and Political Catholicism of Graham Greene and Evelyn Waugh
“…Whenever there was a chance to have a shot at Catholicism in his writing, George Orwell could always be relied on to take aim and discharge both barrels. With the grim vision of Vatican support for Franco fresh in his mind, he was hardly without justification…”
