Book Reviews
DSA covers for unions and Democrats in new book on walkout by West Virginia teachers
55 Strong, Inside the West Virginia Teachers’ Strike
By Nancy Hanover, 18 October 2018
A new book promoted by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is centered on the lie that the West Virginia teachers’ strike, which set off the series of strikes nationally last spring, was a “victory” in which the unions played a heroic role.
Daniel Ellsberg’s The Doomsday Machine: A prescient warning of the danger of nuclear war
By Kevin Martinez, 13 October 2018
The famous whistleblower of the “Pentagon Papers” provides a disturbing and timely memoir of his days preparing nuclear war policies for the Pentagon.
Dopesick by Beth Macy
Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America
By Gary Joad, 25 September 2018
Author Beth Macy paints a searing and heartbreaking portrait of the Appalachian victims of the current opioid epidemic in the United States.
Adam Tooze’s Crashed: The limitations of a Left-liberal historian
By Nick Beams, 22 September 2018
The historian Adam Tooze has published a detailed account of the origins and development of the global financial crisis of 2008 and its aftermath.
Olen Steinhauer’s The Middleman: An American uprising, darkly imagined
By James Brookfield, 5 September 2018
At the outset of The Middleman a group of approximately 400 Americans scattered throughout the country suddenly disappear from their day-to-day lives without telling friends and family.
Seymour Hersh’s Reporter: A life exposing government lies and crimes
By Andre Damon, 3 September 2018
Seymour Hersh, the investigative journalist who played a leading role in exposing the 1968 My Lai massacre in Vietnam and the Bush Administration’s torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, has published a long-awaited autobiography.
Growing poverty in cities and growing wealth at the top
A review of The Divided City by Alan Mallach
By Debra Watson, 31 August 2018
The research presented in The Divided City discredits the claim that promotion of upscale urban downtowns will bring improvement to the lives of workers in post-industrial urban America.
Physics, poetry and the search for quantum gravity: Carlo Rovelli’s Reality Is Not What It Seems
By Bryan Dyne, 29 June 2018
Rovelli’s works on modern physics combine a materialist approach to science with a popular approach of explanation that is informed by a knowledge of literature and philosophy.
Revisiting Hollywood’s Censor: Joseph I. Breen & The Production Code Administration (2007)
How the American establishment censored Hollywood during its “Golden Age”
By Charles Bogle, 17 May 2018
The bulk of Thomas Doherty’s work covers the period from 1934 to 1954, when his subject was the enforcer of the Production Code.
French ruling class promotes memoirs of neo-fascist Jean-Marie Le Pen
By Francis Dubois, 9 March 2018
As French imperialism prepares for new wars, a vast operation is underway to rehabilitate the Nazi-collaborationist Vichy regime and France’s colonial war in Algeria.
Ursula K. Le Guin: Prominent science fiction and fantasy writer (1929-2018)
By Sandy English, 8 March 2018
Ursula K. Le Guin, one of the most significant and popular English-language writers of speculative fiction, associated with feminism and utopianism, died January 28 at the age of 88.
Daniel Golden’s Spy Schools: How the CIA, FBI, and foreign intelligence secretly exploit America’s universities
By Clara Weiss, 28 February 2018
The new book by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Daniel Golden is an important contribution toward understanding the military-intelligence-university complex in the United States.
The crisis of dental care under American capitalism
By Esther Galen, 11 January 2018
Teeth: The Story of Beauty, Inequality, and the Struggle for Oral Health in America, exposes the reality of poor dental health and lack of dental care endured by the working class and poor in the US.
The tragic and needless death of Deamonte Driver, a victim of dental disease
By Esther Galen, 11 January 2018
The 12-year-old boy died when bacteria from an untreated tooth abscess traveled to his brain.
Ron Chernow’s Grant: An able and compelling new biography
By Andre Damon, 15 December 2017
Chernow capably weaves together an account of the life of the Civil War general, president and memoirist.
Mark Mazower’s What You Did Not Tell: The fate of a 20th century family from Russia
By Clara Weiss, 5 December 2017
Mark Mazower’s account of his family’s history, which was closely entangled with the development of the Russian revolutionary movement, is a very interesting and stimulating read.
The Republic For Which It Stands: The United States During Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, 1865-1896
Ida B. Wells, democratic rights, and lynch mob sexual assault accusations against African-Americans
By Eric London, 21 November 2017
The fight for the democratic rights of black men accused of rape is an essential issue highlighted by Richard White in his 941-page history of the post-Civil War period.
Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House
An insider’s view of the crisis-ridden Democratic Party
By Andre Damon, 20 November 2017
Donna Brazile’s new book provides a glimpse of the divisions and factional struggles gripping the Democratic Party.
Thomas Mackaman’s New Immigrants and the Radicalization of American Labor, 1914-1924
Immigration and socialist strategy in America, past and present
By Eric London, 24 October 2017
Thomas Mackaman’s New Immigrants and the Radicalization of American Labor, 1914-1924 is an essential contribution not only to labor history, but also toward the development of a strategy of social revolution today.
The Death Gap: How Inequality Kills
The “disease” of social inequality sends thousands to a premature death
By Benjamin Mateus and George Marlowe, 25 September 2017
A new book by Chicago doctor David Ansell reveals the profound ways in which social inequality in the US creates “death gaps” and disparities in life expectancies.
Hillary Clinton’s What Happened: A conspiracy theory of the 2016 election
By Andre Damon, 20 September 2017
Hillary Clinton’s memoir, released September 13, represents the Democratic Party’s semi-official narrative of its electoral defeat in 2016.
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.
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