STEVE ANDREW enjoys an account of the many communities that flourished independently of and in resistance to the empires of old
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Best of 2018: Books
by GORDON PARSONS
Authoritative: Neil Faulkner
TOM STONE urges you to catch the last dates of a New York singer/songwriter, never afraid to challenge her audiences musically or politically
JAN WOOLF examines work that aims to give viewers a material experience of the environments in the polar north and Britain equally affected by the climate crisis
The bard recalls advice received 50 years ago from his TRB muse, and sorts out appropriate legislation for football club ownership
MICHAL BONCZA and MARIA DUARTE review Facing War, Kontinental ’25, Bugonia, and Relay
MAYER WAKEFIELD is frustrated by a production of Ibsen’s classic study of an anti-heroine that fails to elucidate her motivations
PETER MASON tunes his ear into the domestic affairs of a Carribbean couple with a troublesome son
NEIL FAULKNER’S A Radical History of the World (Pluto Press) is as exhaustive and authoritative as any attempt to record human history could be and it also reads with the ease of a novel.
Most impressive of all, however, is the author’s holistic approach. He recognises that every major turning point or revolution in humanity's journey has depended upon the natural, social, technological and geopolitical conditions of the time.
As Marx stated, people make their own history but they do not make it as they please and, if the final chapters paint the potential of a disastrous future, Faulkner spells out the lessons from the past and what must be done to avoid the end of history.
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GORDON PARSONS is enthralled by an erudite and entertaining account of where the language we speak came from
FIONA O’CONNOR recommends an accessible and entertaining survey of post-war French philosophy and its relation to contemporary capitalism
JOHN GREEN takes issue with a mainstream novel designed to denigrate the GDR
Two books and a film that examine cultural excavation and the impact of place on behaviour