Homing in on England The Story of England—A Village and Its People Through the Whole of English History Michael Wood, London: Penguin 440 pps, £20 Michael Wood begins with a quotation from Blake: To Particularize is the Alone Distinction of Merit. This line betokens his aim, which is to zero in on one small English… Continue reading
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As I went walking down Broadway…
As I went walking down Broadway… Cities, like men, are embodiments of the past and mirages of unfulfilled dreams Sibyl Moholy-Nagy, Matrix of Man, 1968 The subway train clanked and screeched out of the darkness at last into stretched autumnal sunshine. I rattled northwards in an emptying carriage gazing down on nameless nondescript streets, and… Continue reading
Soulcraft as leechcraft – A. N. Wilson’s Our Times
Soulcraft as Leechcraft Our Times: The Age of Elizabeth II A.N. Wilson, New York, NY: Farrar, Straus & Giroux 496 pp. $30.00 The photographs on the jacket of Our Times provide a pointed reminder that the British past is not just another country but another continent. The newly crowned Queen looks self-conscious yet confident in Cecil… Continue reading
Sympathetic magic – Barbara Ehrenreich’s Smile or Die
Sympathetic Magic Smile or Die: How Positive Thinking Fooled America & The World Barbara Ehrenreich, London: Granta, 256 pp., £10.99 Endorsements by Christopher Hitchens and Nora Ephron do not inspire confidence in Smile or Die. Nor does Barbara Ehrenreich’s website, with its list of soporific- sounding previous publications, which includes Long March, Short Spring: The Student… Continue reading
With Wallenstein in High Germany
With Wallenstein in High Germany It is a small town in Bavaria, and it is at least 32 degrees C. The camera weighs heavy in my hands, and I can feel speckles of sweat accumulating beneath my black rucksack, as it soaks up the sun like a square and sinister sponge. All around us are… Continue reading
Leicester – the arrhythmic heart of England
Leicester – the arrhythmic heart of England The city of Leicester is about as far from the sea as one can get in England. But one sweltering August day, when everyone else was heading down to the beaches, we were driving in the opposite direction so that I could fill in a long-troubling gap on… Continue reading