Reviews of Habibi Funk 031, Kayatibu, and The Good Ones
Latest editorial
Germ of a solution
JOHN GREEN recommends a revelatory account of global pandemics and the ways they can be prevented in future
HARD FACT: Soldiers of French 87th Regiment in their trenches on Hill 304 at Verdun, 1916 - during WWI the average soldier stood more chance of becoming disease fodder than cannon fodder
[National Army Museum/Creative Commons]
SIMON DUFF relishes the cross contamination of Damien Hirst’s greatest hits by street artists from France and the US
In view of the grooming gangs inquiry, SIMON PARSONS feels the relevance of this powerful examination of trauma suffered at Medomsley Youth Detention Centre
JOHN GREEN doubts the motivations of a US war photographer who never questions why, or for whom, she is producing images of imperialist conflict
MARIA DUARTE reviews Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, Hedda, The Mastermind, and Regretting You
TONY CONWAY welcomes a thrilling and concise history of Hope not Hate, that is also a manual full of tactical advice
PAUL DONOVAN welcomes an inspiring account of living with deafness that has important lessons for the treatment of deaf people in today’s UK
New Pandemics, Old Politics: Two Hundred Years of War on Disease and its Alternatives
by Alex de Waal
(Polity Press, £50)
IN NEW Pandemics, Old Politics, Alex de Waal takes to task what he calls the gargantuan error of characterising the current pandemic as the “war on disease.”
When we most need a narrative to make sense of such a devastating pandemic, that epithet “not only fails but also stops us recognising our failures,” he writes.
Reviewing past pandemics such as cholera, so-called Spanish Flu and Aids he demonstrates — alarmingly — how administrative measures taken in response to the virulent Spanish Flu in 1918-19 were almost exactly the same as today.
Similar stories
GORDON PARSONS is enthralled by an erudite and entertaining account of where the language we speak came from
JOHN GREEN wades through a pessimistic prophesy that does not consider the need for radical change in political and social structures
The NHS continues to say Covid spreads primarily through ‘droplet and touch’ while the WHO emphasises airborne transmission, meaning vulnerable patients and healthcare workers face unnecessary risks, reports RUTH HUNT
IMAN HAMAD of the Sudanese Women’s Union reports from a nation torn apart by civil war — one where both factions are now committing horrific crimes against women and girls in the conflict zones