To rescue Kahlo from the clutches of the corporate art market, we need to acknowledge the overt and covert political dimensions of the work, demands GAVIN O’TOOLE
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Radical insights into how we make history
If you can see past the relentless commodification you will be rewarded by enormously powerful work, suggests JENNY MITCHELL
CHRIS SEARLE revels in the one-off collaboration between an American polymath and a British Muslim, and detects the presence of their revolutionary forebear
GORDON PARSONS revels in an ebullient production of Shakespeare’s magical comedy
BRENT CUTLER welcomes a thoughtful analysis of the Erdogan regime, viewed through the evolving history of a neighbourhood in Istanbul
GORDON PARSONS regrets the price, but is dazzled by an outstandingly ambitious study of the way art restoration in particular, and culture in general was weaponised by the Nazis
A Radical History of the World
by Neil Faulkner
(Pluto Press, £14.99)
HISTORY, in our frenetic times, is increasingly seen as one damned thing after another. Not so with Neil Faulkner’s epic treatment, based on his Marxist understanding that mankind makes its own history but not under conditions of its own choosing.
In adopting a holistic approach, Faulkner provides an alternative to the received historical record, with his book ranging from the earliest appearance of hominins, our human forebears, to the present.
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HENRY BELL follows the lineage of revolutions, from the English to the Chinese, and asks where revolutionary politics exists today
MARTIN GRAHAM welcomes, with reservations, a scholarly addition to the unfinished business of understanding how capital works on a world scale
STEVE ANDREW enjoys an account of the many communities that flourished independently of and in resistance to the empires of old
GORDON PARSONS is enthralled by an erudite and entertaining account of where the language we speak came from