Small Men on the Wrong Side of History – The Decline, Fall, and Unlikely Return of Conservatism Ed West, London, Constable, 2020, 426 pages The story of conservatism since 1945 has been one of failure wrapped up in frequent electoral success. While anatomising this oft-noted conundrum, Ed West outlines excellently the intellectual and stylistic differences… Continue reading
Post Category → Books
Eager for beavers
Bringing Back the Beaver Derek Gow, London: Chelsea Green, 2020, hb, 208 pages, £20 Conservationists are frequently criticised for focusing on glamorous species at the expense of others equally important, but unluckily uglier – pandas rather than pangolins, birds rather than bats, and monkeys rather than mole-rats. Europe’s frankly lumpy largest rodent, the European beaver,… Continue reading
Deep mining
The Dominant Animal, Kathryn Scanlan, Daunt Books, 2020, 118 pages, £9.99 Iowa-born Kathryn Scanlan emerged onto the literary scene in 2019 with Aug 9 – Fog, which took the found, real diary of an octogenarian stranger and turned it into an oddly poetical meditation on ‘ordinary’ life and mortality. The Dominant Animal is made up… Continue reading
Traditionalism redux
War for Eternity – Inside Bannon’s Far-Right Circle of Global Power Brokers Benjamin R. Teitelbaum, New York: Dey Street Books, 2020, pb, 315 pages Many critics have made attacks on President Trump and his intellectual influences, but Benjamin Teitelbaum is cleverer and fairer-minded than most. War for Eternity strives to show that many modern national… Continue reading
The very human history of Holy Writ
The History of The Bible John Barton, Allen Lane, 2020, 622 pages, £9.99 Western civilization is inconceivable without The Bible. Its assumptions, language and metaphors resound through our activities and imaginations, even if we think we have rejected religion as superstition. But how did the Bible develop from folkloric Near Eastern origins to today’s omnipresence?… Continue reading
Call of the wild
Losing Eden – Why Our Minds Need the Wild Lucy Jones, Allen Lane, 2020, 272 pages, £14 Since the start of civilization, jaded townspeople have dreamed of escaping from the city and reconnecting with nature. In this highly personal but also well-informed study, Lucy Jones demonstrates that this is not just a sentimental yearning, but… Continue reading
Flows of history
Rivers of Power – How a Natural Force Raised Kingdoms, Destroyed Civilisations, and Shapes Our World Laurence C Smith, Allen Lane, 356 pages, £20 Geography can be history, and history geography – and sometimes the most obvious things are overlooked. Rivers of Power seeks to make us see beneath the surfaces of arterial waters, and… Continue reading
Dubliners of a different kind – Dublin Seven by Frankie Gaffney
DUBLINERS OF A DIFFERENT KIND Dublin Seven, Frankie Gaffney, Dublin: Liberties Press, 2015, pb. This uncompromising story about Dublin drug-dealers was published to acclaim in Irish literary circles, although this is the first UK review. Though the subject may seem parochial and is at times squalid, like Trainspotting (with which it was inevitably compared), Dublin… Continue reading
John Aubrey – remembrancer, romantic and forward-thinker – John Aubrey, My Own Life by Ruth Scurr
JOHN AUBREY – REMEMBRANCER, ROMANTIC AND FORWARD-THINKER John Aubrey, My Own Life Ruth Scurr, London: Chatto & Windus, 2015, hb., 518pp, £25 Just as English painting is renowned for portraiture, so English letters have been illuminated by some of the greatest biographers ever to burnish world literature. After Boswell, the best-known is John Aubrey (1626-1697),… Continue reading
Testing for humanity – The Plague Dogs by Richard Adams
TESTING FOR HUMANITY The Plague Dogs (book 1977, film 1982) I came across by chance recently a DVD of The Plague Dogs, a 1982 animation of Richard Adams’ bestselling 1977 novel. I was catapulted immediately back to childhood, when I had read the book shortly after publication, with a sense of distress and anger I… Continue reading