Book Reviews
Locking Up Our Own, by James Forman, Jr.
New book describes the role of black mayors and police officials in mass incarceration
By Fred Mazelis, 5 July 2017
Forman’s account provides further evidence that the massive growth of the US prison population is rooted primarily in class oppression, not in racial divisions.
Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes’s Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton’s Doomed Campaign
The Democratic Convention, anti-Russian hysteria, and Clinton’s concession
Part Two
By Eric London, 27 May 2017
A new book provides insight into how the Democratic Party attempted to manipulate popular opposition to war and inequality to advance the interests of the American financial aristocracy.
Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes’s Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton’s Doomed Campaign
An inside look at Bernie Sanders’s role in the Democratic Party primaries
Part One
By Eric London, 26 May 2017
A new book provides insight into how the Democratic Party attempted to manipulate popular opposition to war and inequality to advance the interests of the American financial aristocracy.
Haymarket Books’ #Resist: The International Socialist Organization props up the Democratic Party in Chicago
By Jessica Goldstein, 22 May 2017
Michelle Alexander and Naomi Klein discussed reforming the Democratic Party and their support for Bernie Sanders at a public discussion hosted by the ISO’s Keeanga-Yahmatta Taylor.
Human rights propaganda in support of imperialist war
The Return of History, Conflict, Migration and Geopolitics in the 21st Century
By Roger Jordan, 18 May 2017
Based on human rights propaganda and a dishonest presentation of the virtues of international law, author Jennifer Welsh argues that the West has to act more aggressively to defend democratic values against terrorism and a resurgent Russia.
The Last Day of Oppression and the First Day of the Same: The Politics and Economics of the New Latin American Left
The pseudo-left’s appraisal of the “pink tide”: A recipe for further betrayals
By Eric London, 9 May 2017
Jeffrey R. Webber’s 2017 book is an agglomeration of the worst threads of Latin American petty-bourgeois radicalism. It is worth studying as a textbook of everything socialism is not.
Book details killing of Afghan civilians in New Zealand SAS raid
By Tom Peters, 5 April 2017
The book Hit and Run, by Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson, indicates that the New Zealand government and Defence Force have covered up war crimes in Afghanistan.
ANZAC Heroes: Promoting war to children
By Sam Price and Tom Peters, 24 March 2017
A New Zealand government-funded children’s book glorifies Australian and New Zealand involvement in World War I and II.
Revisiting John Steinbeck’s A Russian Journal from 1948
By Clara Weiss, 21 March 2017
American novelist John Steinbeck, together with famed Hungarian-born war photographer Robert Capa, visited the Soviet Union in 1947 on the very eve of the Cold War.
Secret Affairs: Britain’s collusion with radical Islam
A revealing insight into political criminality and warmongering—Part 2
By Jean Shaoul, 6 March 2017
Britain’s collusion with Islamist fundamentalist forces prepared to use atrocities to achieve their objectives is in sharp contrast to the official line that Britain is conducting a “war on terror.”
Secret Affairs: Britain’s collusion with radical Islam
A revealing insight into political criminality and warmongering—Part 1
By Jean Shaoul, 4 March 2017
In Secret Affairs, author Mark Curtis investigates how Britain worked with radical Islamic groups in the post-World War II period in pursuit of its geopolitical interests.
Eliot Cohen’s blueprint for World War Three
By Eric London, 8 February 2017
The former State Department official’s book calling for preemptive nuclear war was warmly received by the Wall Street Journal and New York Times.
J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy: Right-wing propaganda in the guise of personal memoir
By Henry Seward, 25 January 2017
The 2016 best-selling memoir by a lawyer at a Silicon Valley investment firm is a rehash of reactionary attacks on the working class in Appalachia and the Midwest.
Hitler’s Professors: A documentation of war crimes by German academics against the Jewish people
By Clara Weiss, 16 January 2017
Max Weinreich’s classic study, Hitler’s Professors, first published in 1946, documents the role of leading German academics in the murder of Europe’s Jewish population.
A Pound of Flesh: The US legal system’s war against the poor
By Nancy Hanover, 7 January 2017
A Pound of Flesh: Monetary Sanctions as Punishment for the Poor, a new book by sociologist Alexes Harris, shows how legal financial obligations (LFOs) penalize the poorest among us.
Exile as an Intellectual Way of Life: The collaboration of Lion Feuchtwanger and Bertolt Brecht
By Sybille Fuchs, 29 December 2016
In his new book, journalist and non-fiction writer Andreas Rumler examines the intellectual relationship between two major German literary figures, Lion Feuchtwanger and Bertolt Brecht.
Novelist Lionel Shriver’s The Mandibles: A Family, 2029–2047 imagines an American meltdown
By James Brookfield, 6 December 2016
When we meet the cast of characters, in Shriver’s dystopian novel set in the not-so-distant future, the US is mired in economic crisis, driven largely by the growth of entitlement spending.
New study of American novelist
A conversation with Tony Williams, author of James Jones: The Limits of Eternity—Part 2
By David Walsh, 2 December 2016
Tony J. Williams has written a new study of the American novelist, James Jones (1921–77), best known for From Here to Eternity, Some Came Running, The Thin Red Line and the posthumously published Whistle.
New study of American novelist
A conversation with Tony Williams, author of James Jones: The Limits of Eternity—Part 1
By David Walsh, 1 December 2016
Tony J. Williams has written a new study of the American novelist, James Jones (1921–77), best known for From Here to Eternity, Some Came Running, The Thin Red Line and the posthumously published Whistle.
The political anatomy of pseudo-left war propaganda
Part two
By Eric London, 2 November 2016
A Road Unforeseen employs postmodernist political categories and identity politics in an explicit call for US war in the Middle East.
The political anatomy of pseudo-left war propaganda
Part one
By Eric London, 1 November 2016
A Road Unforeseen employs postmodernist political categories and identity politics in constructing an argument for war in the Middle East.
Making the case for war in Eastern Europe
Robert D. Kaplan’s In Europe’s Shadow
By Clara Weiss, 26 October 2016
The latest book by Robert D. Kaplan advocates transforming Romania into a military staging ground for US imperialism and preparing for all-out war against Russia.
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates: The dystopian vision of racial politics
By Tom Eley and David Walsh, 15 October 2016
With the publication last year of African-American journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me, the political and media establishment quickly declared the author to be one of the country’s leading commentators on race.
Trotsky in New York, 1917: A Radical on the Eve of Revolution, by Kenneth D. Ackerman
By Linda Tenenbaum, 8 October 2016
Trotsky in New York, 1917 focuses on a remarkable period in the life of one of the greatest political figures in modern history.
Adam Hochschild’s Spain in Our Hearts: A deeply felt work on the Spanish Civil War marred by its perspective
By Emanuele Saccarelli, 3 October 2016
Hochschild is the well-known author of several books on wide-ranging and important topics, including the brutality of Belgian colonialism in the Congo (King Leopold’s Ghost).
Matthew Desmond’s Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City
By Debra Watson, 13 September 2016
During the Great Depression of the 1930’s evictions in major American cities like Milwaukee were a fraction of what they are today. Meanwhile, in the US, post-2008 rental housing market rates continue to rise as working class incomes stagnate and even fall.
An interview with Roy Scranton, author of War Porn
By Eric London, 1 September 2016
Novelist Roy Scranton spoke with the WSWS about his debut novel, War Porn, and the role of art in opposing war.
War Porn by Roy Scranton
The anti-war novel re-emerges in American literature
By Eric London, 22 August 2016
The debut novel by former US Army soldier Roy Scranton is a portrayal of a society devastated by a state of permanent war.
An interview with David Williams, author of Bitterly Divided: The South’s Inner Civil War
By Eric London, 16 August 2016
The World Socialist Web Site recently interviewed Professor David Williams of Valdosta State University about class conflict during the American Civil War and its relationship to social and political developments after the war.
Sleeping Giant: Deception and lies about the “new” working class
By Nancy Hanover, 11 August 2016
A new book by Demos editor Tamara Draut seeks to refurbish the Democratic Party and the trade unions by promoting identity politics.
All Quiet on the Western Front: A generation haunted by war
By Isaac Finn, 5 August 2016
Erich Maria Remarque’s seminal work, All Quiet on the Western Front, deals with a generation thrown into World War I and the confusion and depression of those who survived.
Bitterly Divided: The South’s Inner Civil War
By Eric London, 26 July 2016
A 2008 book by Professor David Williams provides a mountain of evidence refuting the claim that the recent film Free State of Jones, directed by Gary Ross, presented “a quasi-historical” approach to the American Civil War and social conflict in the Confederacy.
Book Review
The Mare by Mary Gaitskill: Attention to social inequality—in her own way
By Sandy English, 12 July 2016
In her new novel, Gaitskill focuses on a poor Dominican teenager from New York City, the suburban family she lives with during the summer and her experiences relating to a particularly abused horse.
Again on Don DeLillo’s Zero K: How does a novel turn toward social life?
By Eric London, 13 June 2016
Don DeLillo’s latest novel, about the determination of a small group of wealthy individuals to have their bodies cryogenically preserved, is worth our attention.
Night without end: Don DeLillo’s Zero K
By James Brookfield, 7 June 2016
American author Don DeLillo’s 17th novel is a dark story about the determination of a small group of wealthy individuals to have their bodies cryogenically preserved.
Canadian capitalism and the subjugation and decimation of the indigenous population
By Janet Browning, 23 April 2016
As Clearing the Plains demonstrates, the Canadian capitalist state was consolidated through the dispossession of the Native Indian population, through violence, chicanery, and state-sponsored famine.
Stephen Parker’s Bertolt Brecht. A Literary Life—a welcome biography that raises big historical issues
By Sybille Fuchs, 18 April 2016
One of the most talented and influential playwrights of the 20th century, Brecht adapted to Stalinism, with pernicious consequences for his career and work.
German Left Party leader’s plea for nationalism and the free market economy
By Peter Schwarz, 25 March 2016
In her book Wealth without Greed (Reichtum ohne Gier), the leading Left Party politician advocates a strong, protectionist, ethnically and linguistically homogeneous national state.
Book Review
Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See: All the history the novelist cannot see
By Leah Jeresova, 23 March 2016
Doerr’s second novel takes a moralizing, ahistorical view of events during the Second World War.
Novelist Jonathan Franzen’s Purity
By Sandy English, 17 March 2016
Franzen’s highly praised fifth novel is a largely––and carelessly––misanthropic, right-wing work that fails to create complex or plausible characters.
Book Review
$2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America
By Debra Watson, 15 March 2016
By 2011, 15 years after President Clinton’s 1996 welfare “reform,” the number of people in the US living in absolute poverty, defined as an income of less than $2.00 per day, had doubled.
The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The US Standard of Living Since the Civil War
By Eric London, 23 February 2016
According to a recent book by Northwestern University economist Robert Gordon, there is no objective foundation for an end to economic stagnation in the United States.
Twenty-five years since the first Gulf War
Desert Slaughter: The Imperialist War Against Iraq—an enduring contribution to waging war on war
By Eric London, 21 January 2016
In 1991, the Workers League, forerunner of the SEP, published this valuable compendium of articles and statements providing a Marxist analysis of the imperialist war in Iraq and the breakdown of the postwar international order.
Power Wars: Inside Obama’s Post-9/11 Presidency
Obama’s place in history: Permanent war and the breakdown of American democracy
Part two
By Eric London, 14 January 2016
A significant 769-page book from New York Times reporter Charlie Savage provides a chilling, detailed insider view of the Obama administration’s pseudo-legal justifications for war and authoritarianism.
John Heartfield: Laughter Is A Devastating Weapon
David King on the famed German photomontage artist
By Jeff Lusanne, 28 December 2015
Laughter is a Devastating Weapon presents 50 full-page images of John Heartfield’s work, revealing the power, impact and problems of the brilliant German artist’s satirical photomontages.
The fate of Zuckerberg’s “gift” to Newark schools
By Fred Mazelis, 14 December 2015
A new book provides a case study on the nature of the “school reform” movement and the attacks on public education.
From Roma refugee to attorney in Germany: Nizaqete Bislimi’s Durch die Wand (“Through the Wall”)
By Elisabeth Zimmermann, 18 November 2015
Roma author Nizaqete Bislimi describes how she overcame the obstacle of Germany’s inhumane immigration laws after her escape from Kosovo.
Ted Dawe’s Into the River: A compelling portrait of life for a working-class teenager in New Zealand
By Tom Peters, 10 November 2015
The novel has been attacked by fundamentalist Christians, the media and the state because of its realistic depiction of social inequality, racism and class oppression.
The French Republic as killing machine
The Killers of the Republic, by Vincent Nouzille
By Anthony Torres, 9 September 2015
Nouzille’s book lifts the veil on the history of French President François Hollande's “kill list” and the increasing resort to state murder.
Book review
The Devil is Here in These Hills: West Virginia’s Coal Miners and their Battle for Freedom, by James Green
By Tom Mackaman, 18 August 2015
The book’s most important—and timely—contribution is its revelation of the startling level of violence that characterized class relations in an earlier period.
The covert “selling” of anticommunism
The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America
By Nancy Hanover, 17 August 2015
The Mighty Wurlitzer is an examination of the CIA’s 1947-67 campaigns against anti-capitalist and socialist thought.
The covert “selling” of anticommunism
The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America
Part 2
By Nancy Hanover, 12 August 2015
The Mighty Wurlitzer is an examination of the CIA’s 1947-67 campaigns against anti-capitalist and socialist thought.
The covert “selling” of anticommunism
The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America
Part 1
By Nancy Hanover, 11 August 2015
The Mighty Wurlitzer is an examination of the CIA’s 1947-67 campaigns against militant, anti-capitalist and particularly socialist thought.
Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman: More of a moneymaking than a literary event?
By Sandy English, 3 August 2015
Harper Lee’s early draft of a novel, Go Set a Watchman, has sold over a million copies in the United States since its release two weeks ago.
Samuel Kassow’s Who Will Write Our History?
By Clara Weiss, 25 July 2015
Kassow’s history of the Oyneg Shabes underground archive in the Warsaw Ghetto combines remarkable objectivity with a deep compassion for the tragic fate of Warsaw’s Jewry during World War II.
Strange Fruit by Kenan Malik: A polemic against racism and identity politics
By Nancy Hanover, 29 June 2015
The WSWS is reposting a 2010 review of Strange Fruit, a book by British journalist and scientist Kenan Malik, who penned a thoughtful look on the complex biological, social and historical issues involved in the notion of race and racism.
A review of Stephen Kotkin’s Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928: Part four
By Fred Williams, 4 June 2015
Stephen Kotkin’s first volume of a projected three-volume biography of Stalin, published by Penguin Press, is a travesty of historical writing.
A review of Stephen Kotkin’s Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928: Part two
By Fred Williams, 2 June 2015
Stephen Kotkin’s first volume of a projected three-volume biography of Stalin, published by Penguin Press, is a travesty of historical writing.
A review of Stephen Kotkin’s Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928: Part one
By Fred Williams, 1 June 2015
Stephen Kotkin’s first volume of a projected three-volume biography of Stalin, published by Penguin Press, is a travesty of historical writing.
Pro-capitalist “anti-capitalism”
A review of This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate, by Naomi Klein
By Evan Winters, 4 May 2015
Klein calls for a coalition of various organizations to pressure national governments to implement protectionist policies and environmental and social reforms.
The role of Australian schools in World War I
Soldier Boys: The Militarisation of Australian and New Zealand Schools for World War I
By Margaret Rees and Linda Levin, 25 April 2015
The vast majority of recruits to the Australian military during WWI were the product of a harsh and punitive system of compulsory military training.
Bleakness without respite: Atticus Lish’s novel Preparation for the Next Life
By Sandy English, 24 March 2015
Atticus Lish’s lengthy novel is a love story between an undocumented Chinese immigrant and an American veteran of the Iraq War.
Berlin professor sees Germany as the “taskmaster” of Europe
By Peter Schwarz, 13 March 2015
In his new book, Power in the Center, political scientist Herfried Münkler, who has close ties to the political establishment, argues openly for German hegemony in Europe.
The twentieth century was lived in vain: Leonardo Padura’s The Man Who Loved Dogs
By Sandy English, 7 February 2015
Padura’s novel takes a pessimistic, cynical view of history as it describes the life of Ramon Mercader, the assassin of Trotsky.
Guantánamo Diary: A book that needs to be read
By Tom Carter, 6 February 2015
Guantánamo Diary, written by a current inmate of the infamous camp and suppressed by the US government for seven years, is a terrifying exposure of the secret US torture program—and much more.
The Nazi war of annihilation against the Soviet Union: Part two
Nazi Policy on the Eastern Front, 1941: Total War, Genocide, and Radicalization
By Clara Weiss, 13 January 2015
The volume provides insight into the criminal historical antecedents of the current siege of cities in eastern Ukraine by the Western-installed regime in Kiev, spearheaded by Ukrainian fascist forces.
The Nazi war of annihilation against the Soviet Union: Part one
Nazi Policy on the Eastern Front, 1941: Total War, Genocide, and Radicalization
By Clara Weiss, 12 January 2015
The volume provides insight into the criminal historical antecedents of the current siege of cities in eastern Ukraine by the Western-installed regime in Kiev, spearheaded by Ukrainian fascist forces.
Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces
Radley Balko, 2013, PublicAffairs
By Nick Barrickman, 2 December 2014
While arguing that the US is not yet a totalitarian society, Balko acknowledges that “we have entered a police state writ small.”
James Risen on war and the US financial aristocracy
Pay Any Price: Greed, Power, and Endless War
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014
By Eric London, 19 November 2014
James Risen’s latest book details crimes committed by the Bush and Obama administrations under the auspices of the “war on terror” and the profits made by corporate interests.
“Give me something to do”
The literary impact and social concerns of American novelist Dave Eggers
By James Brookfield, 3 November 2014
Without wanting to oversimplify, one presumes that the general sympathy with which sufferers are treated in Eggers’ novels is owing in no small measure to his own experiences.
Who Owns Germany? Documenting the widening gulf between rich and poor
By Gustav Kemper, 15 September 2014
Berger’s book reveals startling facts about the redistribution of wealth from the bottom to the top of German society.
The beginning of modern physics
By Henry Allan and Bryan Dyne, 9 September 2014
David Whitehouse’s Renaissance Genius: Galileo Galilei and His Legacy to Modern Science, provides a human portrait of Galileo, his times and his role in the advancement and popularization of science.
New facts revealed on 2010 ousting of Australian PM
By Nick Beams, 29 August 2014
Paul Kelly’s book effectively demolishes the political fictions manufactured to justify the coup against Kevin Rudd.
Anzac’s Long Shadow: The Cost of Our National Obsession
A right-wing critique of Australia’s World War I centenary celebrations
By Richard Phillips, 22 August 2014
A new book calls for increased funds and greater focus on elite military leadership, in order to prepare for new imperialist interventions.
A key moment in the prehistory of the Enlightenment
By Tom Carter, 9 August 2014
Greenblatt’s controversial book The Swerve: How the World Became Modern won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, and it has also come under attack as an “anti-religious diatribe.”
Interview with Professor Ian Duncan on Sir Walter Scott: The novel “as a kind of total environment of human life”
By David Walsh, 31 July 2014
Ian Duncan is the author of an introduction to a Penguin Classics edition of Waverley and currently teaches at the University of California, Berkeley.
Sting of the Drone: Richard A. Clarke’s reservations about American war crimes
By Sandy English, 16 July 2014
Richard A. Clarke, former counterterrorism “czar” under presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, has written a third novel, about drone warfare.
Edlef Köppen’s Higher Command: An important novel on the First World War
By Clara Weiss, 8 July 2014
The semi-documentary character of this novel largely succeeds in making comprehensible the shattering impact of the war on the consciousness of millions.
A damning exposure of the assault on public education in the US
Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools
By Nancy Hanover, 19 June 2014
Diane Ravitch’s bestseller powerfully indicts the government and corporate interests attacking public education.
The diary of Lena Mukhina: An important document on the Leningrad blockade
Lenas Tagebuch, translated by Lena Gorelik and Gero Fedtke, Munich, 2013
By Clara Weiss, 11 June 2014
Lena’s Diary is an important historical document relating to one of most horrific, although often forgotten, war crimes of German imperialism.
A crude celebration of Australian militarism
By Laura Tiernan, 9 June 2014
Carlton’s account is not based on any serious historical reconstruction and amounts to a glorification of the Australian military in World War I.
The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert
By Philip Guelpa, 31 May 2014
Human-induced climate change and environmental degradation threaten to cause a sixth mass extinction of life on Earth.
Government-produced book describes WWI as “successful and profitable”
New Zealand and the First World War 1914–1919
By Tom Peters, 24 April 2014
Fenton’s book is part of the government’s WWI centenary program, which is designed to revive militarism and prepare public opinion for future wars.
A Permanent Member of the Family: Responses to trying and frustrating times—short stories by Russell Banks
By Sandy English, 9 April 2014
In recent years, novelist Russell Banks has shifted his focus to upstate New York, where he lives, making it the locale of many of the stories in this interesting new volume.
A review of David Walsh’s The Sky Between the Leaves from Uruguay
“The Permanent Revolution in film criticism”
By Marcelo Arias Souto, 19 February 2014
A comment on WSWS arts editor David Walsh’s The Sky Between the Leaves, written by Marcelo Arias Souto from Uruguay.
Book review
James Cuno’s Museums Matter: In Praise of the Encyclopedic Museum
By Nancy Hanover, 12 February 2014
The book polemicizes against the postmodern view that museums are mere institutions of ideological control imposing Western and state supremacy.
Murdoch’s Politics—An ex-Stalinist in awe of Rupert Murdoch, Part II
By Dave Hyland, 3 February 2014
A two-part review of Murdoch’s Politics—How one man’s thirst for wealth and power shapes our world, David McKnight, Pluto Press.
Murdoch’s Politics—An ex-Stalinist in awe of Rupert Murdoch, Part I
By Dave Hyland, 1 February 2014
A two-part review of Murdoch’s Politics—How one man’s thirst for wealth and power shapes our world, David McKnight, Pluto Press.
Lives of the Scientists and U.S. Presidents
By Christine Schofelt, 16 October 2013
Two collective biographies released this year aimed at children between the ages of 9 and 15 miss the mark in many ways.
The politics of cultural destruction: The Rape of Europa
By Nancy Hanover, 27 September 2013
The attempt to sell the masterworks of the Detroit Institute of Art makes The Rape of Europa, an account of the systematic looting of the art of conquered Europe by the Nazis, a timely read.
War, fascism and the fate of music in the 20th century
By Fred Mazelis, 25 September 2013
An important new book explores the period of musical history brought to an end by fascist barbarism.
Orson Welles and Roger Hill: A Friendship in Three Acts: A remarkable glimpse into cultural history
By David Walsh, 26 July 2013
The new book looks at the relationship between film director Orson Welles and his longtime mentor and friend, Roger Hill, based on conversations and correspondence the pair conducted in the 1980s.
An interview with Todd Tarbox, author of Orson Welles and Roger Hill: A Friendship in Three Acts
By David Walsh, 26 July 2013
David Walsh interviews the grandson of Orson Welles’ life-long friend and mentor, Roger Hill.
Daniel Pinkwater’s Bushman Lives: To become an artist
By Christine Schofelt, 25 June 2013
With this earnest and often hilarious novel for young adults, Daniel Pinkwater encourages exploration, of various kinds.
America’s revolutionary founding document
For Liberty and Equality: The Life and Times of the Declaration of Independence
By Tom Mackaman, 4 May 2013
A book that seriously considers the impact the Declaration of Independence is most welcome reading in 2013, a year which has seen an intensifying assault on the most basic principles of America’s founding document.
The Green Corn Rebellion: 1935 novel about an episode in the American class struggle
By Vince Ostroweicz, 28 January 2013
William Cunningham’s The Green Corn Rebellion offers a fictionalized account of an August 1917 uprising in Oklahoma against conscription during the First World War.
An exercise in myth-making
Gough Whitlam: A Moment in History by Jenny Hocking
By Nick Beams, 26 November 2012
Whitlam's demise is presented as the downfall of a social reformer, almost totally ignoring the global context in which the 1975 Canberra Coup took place.
Book review
Wolfgang Brenner’s Hubert in Wonderland: A life in the shadow of Stalinism
By Sybille Fuchs, 29 October 2012
The well-documented story of a boy from a small village in Germany’s Saar region, who travels to Moscow at the age of ten in late 1933. He is destined never again to see his homeland or most of his family.
A guest review
Bento’s Sketchbook—John Berger’s “Way of Seeing” Spinoza
By Kamilla Vaski, 20 September 2012
Bento’s Sketchbook is a collection of stories, some of them simply vignettes, always connected to a drawing, either as the source of the story or the result of it. The “Bento” of the book’s title is Baruch or Benedict de Spinoza, the seventeenth century philosopher.
A brief for racial politics
The New Jim Crow, by Michelle Alexander
By Helen Halyard and Fred Mazelis, 18 September 2012
For Alexander, the driving force of American society is racial “caste” oppression, not the class struggle.
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