Moments from a massacre: Still from Mike Leigh’s film Peterloo
HENRY BELL is fascinated by the underlying curiosities and contradictions of one of the great poets of the Mediterranean
DAVID RENTON recommends a books that explores the ways in which disabled people are made to feel both of and not part of this world
JONATHAN TAYLOR is fascinated by the philosophical problems that permeate the art of life-writing
GORDON PARSONS steps warily in between the lines of Britain’s most famous diarist
SIMON DUFF recommends a recording of Arvo Part that takes the listener on a pilgrimage through seemingly distant times and events of the Bible
Peterloo
by Robert Poole
(Oxford University Press, £25)
ACADEMIC analysis of Peterloo has been surprisingly scarce, so Robert Poole’s new book is welcome in shedding new light on the events of August 16, 1819, in this bicentenary year of “The English Uprising.”
Revealing a complex set of influences, Robert Poole rejects the notion that the Peterloo massacre occupies a point on a continuum with repression at one end and reform on the other.
