Newest Politics and Society Reviews
Why the Dutch are Different: A Journey into the Hidden Heart of the Netherlands by Ben Coates
I know Holland in the way everyone does. Pancakes and windmills and Pot, oh my. But it's one of the few European countries I've never lived in for any period of time, and so I was intrigued to know more. Full review...
I Used to Know That: History by Emma Marriott
I've picked up a few things over the years, most notably from English language text books while TEFLing abroad (there's nothing like an exciting lesson on Guy Fawkes to have a classroom of Mexicans wondering why we so love to celebrate a terrorist attack that didn't happen). But I have gaps, of this I am sure, and I thought to get a basic understanding of, well, the basics that we all should know, a quick read of this book wouldn't hurt. Full review...
I Should Know That - Great Britain by Emma Marriott
I am a dreadful Brit. I'm better at the geography of Colombia than the UK (true story, I had to google where Essex was the other day). Despite 17 years of full time education in the UK, I probably wouldn't pass a simple citizenship test. Which is a little embarrassing, really. So when this book came up for review I thought I'd have it, both for interest and as a subtle way to brush up on my Britain. Full review...
Capitalism and Human Values by Tony Wilkinson
Tony Wilkinson has a first class honours degree in philosophy and has worked in government service and investment management - the ideal background for a consideration of capitalism and the human values which propel it. It's not too long ago - certainly within my lifetime - that religion largely dictated the values held by individuals, but true religious belief now seems to be the exception rather than the rule. In its place we have a society for whom consumerism is the driving force - and a widening gap between those who can afford to consume and those who cannot. As Wilkinson says Getting and spending have come to define who we are. Full review...
Why Rape Culture is a Dangerous Myth: From Steubenville to Ched Evans by Luke Gittos
It is said that we live in a rape culture. Tabloid headlines scream that the number of rapes is on the increase and that the police and the courts are failing to deal with the problem. There's a belief that the rate of conviction is consistently low. It's also said that sexism and misogyny have created a society in which rape is a regular occurrence, frequently not reported to the police and that society at large doesn't really care. Luke Gittos, a solicitor practicing criminal law, argues that these claims are based on myths and misunderstandings of the statistics and that far from improving the way that rape and sexual assaults are dealt with it's actually working against the interests of victims. Full review...
Night Games: A Journey to the Dark Side of Sport by Anna Krien
Mere mortals relax by having a game of footy of a weekend and a couple of drinks, but what does a professional sportsman do to cut loose? What do they do when they go out en masse? Investigative journalist Anna Krien looks at a rape trial of an Australian Rules footballer, just into his twenties and follows the case as it goes to court, interviewing some of those directly or indirectly involved and digressing into related areas. In deference to the fact that the woman had automatic anonymity she's chosen to give the man who was charged the name of 'Justin' in an attempt to level the playing field, so to speak. You could Google the facts and come up with the correct name, but this isn't a book of gossip about particular people. It's an investigation of a culture which has increasingly treated women as sexual commodities. Full review...
Neither Nowt Nor Summat: In search of the meaning of Yorkshire by Ian McMillan
Ian McMillan, poet, radio presenter, poet in residence at Barnsley Football Club and professional Yorkshireman, is worried. It has crossed his mind that he might not be Yorkshire enough, given that his father was not from God's Own County, but was a Scot by birth. In a series of discursions on the subject of Yorkshire he attempts to distil the essence of the county and to understand what being a Yorkshireman means. To this end we accompany him through towns and cities, the Cudworth Probus Club, Ilkley Moor and elicit contributions from Mad Geoff the barber, a kazoo-playing train guard and four Saddleworth council workers in search of a mattress. Amongst others. All of Yorkshire life is here. Including Yorkshire puddings. Full review...
Buy Me The Sky by Xinran
I started reading Xinran thirteen years ago, and whilst I haven't read all of her books, every one that I have read has at some point had me in tears. This one was no different. Full review...
Food Bank Britain by Ray Barron Woolford
One morning Ray Barron Woolford watched as a smartly-dressed young man foraged in waste bins for food, less than a mile from the riches of the City of London. Intrigued as to what was going on he went to ask. The man explained to him that he'd just got a job after two years of being unemployed, but it would be five weeks before he was paid. He couldn't claim benefits as he was in work and had no savings, so the bins had to be his source of food and by the following week he would have to walk to work as he couldn't afford the fares. That was the inspiration for the We Care Food Bank. Full review...
Generation Z: Their Voices, Their Lives by Chloe Combi
Generation Z, for anyone like me who didn’t know, is made up of those young people born between 1995 and 2001. It is one of the central contentions of Chloe Combi’s book 'Generation Z: Their voices, Their Lives' that these young people’s lives are unlike anyone else’s in British history. From the radical technological innovation which produced the internet and smart phones to multiculturalism, life for these children and teenagers is characterised by so much that was not experienced by their parents and grandparents. In 'Generation Z', then, Combi offers some glimpses into the worlds of young people today, in what she wishes to be 'a conversation starter between teenagers and adults'. Full review...
Azzi in Between by Sarah Garland
Our story begins in a country at war. Unfortunately you could probably put a name to it (although it isn't named) as it happens all too regularly. Our heroine is Azzi, a young girl whose life was not too affected by the war, but every day it came a little closer. Her father still worked as a doctor and her mother made beautiful clothes. Her grandmother wove warm blankets. Then the day came when they had to run, for their lives, and escape was by boat and they became refugees. The three of them - for Grandma had been left behind - had been luckier than most for they were accepted on a temporary basis into another country (again it's not named) and they had a home, although it was just one room. Full review...
Where's the Elephant? by Barroux
We've all had great fun with books such as Where's Wally, haven't we? They appeal to children and adults and everyone who has seen Where's the Elephant? has jumped in with great enthusiasm, keen to show just how observant they are. We start off with a forest - actually it's the Amazon Rainforest - full of glorious colours and our three friends, who are hiding in there. Elephant is probably the easiest to spot, but Snake and Parrot are in there too and with a little concentration you'll find them. When you turn the page you'll scan the trees again and discover their hiding places. You even wonder if it might get a little boring if it goes on like this. Full review...
Franco's Crypt: Spanish Culture and Memory Since 1936 by Jeremy Treglown
With Franco’s Crypt Jeremy Treglown has taken a highly charged subject – life in Spain under Franco – and placed it under what to some might appear a somewhat revisionist microscope. His aim appears to be twofold: to consider the nature of collective memory, particularly in the light of the exhumations of mass graves that commenced earlier this century, and, secondly, to examine – and celebrate - Spain’s cultural output during Franco’s years as dictator. Full review...
Midnight in Siberia: A Train Journey into the Heart of Russia by David Greene
It's no mistake that the cover of my edition of this book is a photo where the Trans-Siberian Railway is horizontal in the frame. It's well known for going east-west, left to right across the map of the largest country by far in the world. 9,288 kilometres from Moscow to the eastern stretches of Russia, it could only be a long, thin line across the cover, as it is in our imagination of it as a form of transport and a travel destination in its own right. So when this book mentions it as the spine or backbone of Russia a couple of times, that's got to be of a prone Russia – one lying down, not upright or active. David Greene, a stalwart of northern American radio journalism, uses this book to see just how active or otherwise Russia and Russians are – and finds their lying down to be quite a definite verdict, as well as a slight indictment. It's no mistake either for this cover to have people in the frame alongside the train carriages, for the people met both riding and living alongside the tracks of the Railway are definitely the ribs of the piece. Full review...
HRC: State Secrets and the Rebirth of Hillary Clinton by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes
Hillary Clinton initially came to our attention as First Lady and even then she might have faded into international obscurity had it not been for the way in which she managed to hold her head high during those unfortunate incidents with Bill - well, HRC wasn't involved but I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. Then she re-emerged through the fog of the George W Bush presidency with her bid to gain the Democratic nomination, losing in a hotly contested series of primaries to Barack Obama - and went on to become his Secretary of State. Now the question is whether or not she will make another run for President in 2016. Full review...
The Kindness of Strangers: Penniless Across America by Mike McIntyre and Chris Brinkley (narrator)
In 1994 Mike McIntyre was a thirty-seven-year-old journalist with a secret: he was frightened. There were specific fears, but what it boiled down to was that he was frightened of life - and then there was a memory. He remembered - with some shame - not stopping for a hitchhiker with a gas can in the desert. It was almost on a whim that he decided to cross America, from San Francisco in California to Cape Fear in North Carolina, which might sound like a great adventure, but McIntyre decides to do it without money - to be completely reliant on the kindness of strangers. He was confronting his own fears. Full review...
Massacre in Norway: The 2011 Terror Attack on Oslo and the Utoya Youth Camp by Stian Bromark and Hon Khiam Leong (translator)
Anders Behring Breivik was 32 when he both planted a van bomb in Oslo's central government district to hit out at what he thought was 'Cultural Marxism', which killed 8, then left for an island in a lake 24 miles away, where a notably political youth gathering was enjoying itself. He gunned down 69 people – more than one in ten of those at the camp – and wounded many scores more. He also spammed countless people with another of his projects, a lengthy manifesto declaring his ideas about Islamisation and what he saw as a pernicious multiculturalism ruining his country. His case was one of the more superlative events in modern Nordic history – as was the surprisingly lenient sentence for over 70 lives of just 21 years. This is, as you'd expect, one of the many books to result from the case. Full review...
Roy Jenkins: A Well-Rounded Life by John Campbell
It must be rare indeed that a British political figure who never became Prime Minister is the subject of or deserves a biography comprising 750 pages of text. However, as John Campbell demonstrates in this volume, it is difficult to do justice to the life, times and career of Roy Jenkins in much less than that. Full review...
Magna Carta: The Making and Legacy of the Great Charter by Dan Jones
For what do we – and by courtesy of a lengthy timeline in history, would the Americans likewise – most likely owe thanks to a spigurnel? What is the most revered legal document in history, which sets out the rights of man – but also has time to talk about widows' rights, fish traps, and to be both sexist and to discuss the importance to people's estates to debts owed Jewish moneylenders? What will probably be the only notable historical experience of Britain in 1215, when we finally get diverted from thinking about WWI and discuss the 800 years of something else, even though the authority of no less than the Pope declared it null and void within ten weeks of its being finished? Full review...
The Royal Enigma by Krishna Bhatt
There is absolutely nothing wrong with books that cross genres. The best historical novels are as much history as fiction. However, it is a golden rule that a book must know who and what it is. One of the problems with The Royal Enigma is that it suffers from a serious identity crisis. Full review...
That's Racist: How the regulation of speech and thought divides us all by Adrian Hart
Adrian Hart has a long history of campaigning against racism, not least because he was subjected to racial abuse when he was at school. With jet-black hair and a complexion that was just slightly darker than was normal he was the closest that his school had to someone who might be of Pakistani origin. It was only name calling from a group of boys but the experience stuck and he's put much of his working life where his mouth is. So, you might expect that he would be a devotee of the zero tolerance approach to racist speech, but he's far from certain that this is the right way to go and believes that this might be causing more divisions in society than racism itself. Full review...
Encyclopedia Paranoiaca by Henry Beard and Christopher Cerf
We're screwed. Wherever we look, whatever we think of doing, there is a reason why we shouldn't be doing it, and people to back that reason up with scientific data. Take any aspect of your daily life – what you eat, how you work, how you rest even, what you touch – all have problems that could provoke a serious illness or worse. And outside that daily sphere there are economic disasters, nuclear meltdowns, errant AI scientists and passing comets that could turn our world upside down at the blink of an eye. Perhaps then you better read this book first – for it may well turn out to be your last… Full review...
How To Be A Conservative by Roger Scruton
Roger Scruton has been described by Jesse Norman as 'one of the few intellectually authoritative voices in British conservatism'. His central theme in this book is to defend and champion the value of the home, a society based on free association and the nation state. The simplest of biographical sections demonstrates that the author was brought up not from ‘privileged’ stock but within a Labour-voting, lower middle class family, to demonstrate that his conservatism was not inherited but a product of his own intellectual journey. Full review...
The Wall Between Us by Matthew Small
In this personal account of his visit to Israel and the West Bank, Small journals his time spent with people he meets along the way and attempts to make sense of the conflict that has dominated this area for many years. Small openly admits the issue there is not a simple one and his visit reinforces the fact that there are many complexities preventing peace from happening. Full review...
Britain in a Perilous World: The Strategic Defence and Security Review we need by Jonathan Shaw
The 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review has stayed in the mind for the wrong reasons: rather than looking to develop a strategy, to examine the short and long term threats which the country faced, the emphasis was on cutting costs, with some cuts appearing ludicrous at first glance. In the intervening years there have been occasions when it was difficult not to wonder if the United Kingdom was poorly equipped - and without clear-cut aims - as a result of the 2010 review. The opportunity to put this right comes in 2015 and Major General Jonathan Shaw looks not at what the Review should say, but at how it should be tackled. Full review...
Pocket World in Figures 2015 by The Economist
There are people who don't understand the joy of raw data: no accompanying analysis (or spin) - just a collection of figures relevant to a particular circumstance. If you're one of those people then this book will mean little to you, but if you want a pocket (well, certainly handbag or briefcase) work of reference then this book will be a treasure. I once gave a copy to a diplomat and he kept his wife awake until the early hours as he came across another gem which she had to know without delay. The 2015 edition is the twenty fourth in the series - and diplomatic (and similar) spouses everywhere should prepare themselves for the onslaught. Full review...
Stand and Deliver: A Design for Successful Government by Ed Straw
Confidence in politicians is at an all-time low. In fact, an alarming number of Britons express outright contempt, not just for their leaders, but for the entire political class - for the politicans themselves, for the civil servants standing behind them, even for the Westminster bubble of commentators and policy wonks. We vote for them in ever-decreasing numbers and even those who continue to vote often do not feel represented. Worse still, the younger you are, the more likely you are to be politically disengaged. We're in danger of losing an entire generation from the political process. How can this be good for a democracy? Full review...
