MICK MCSHANE is roused by a band whose socialism laces every line of every song with commitment and raw passion
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The Great Dissembler
JOHN GREEN appreciates a meticulous dissection of Lyndon Johnson’s presidency that exposes political and economic structures in the US
SITUATION ROOM: Walt Rostow shows President Lyndon B. Johnson a model of the Khe Sanh area 02/15/1968. Johnson ordered the US military to hold Khe Sanh at all costs, and with the eventual abandonment of the base "Khe Sanh became etched in the minds of many Americans as a symbol of the pointless sacrifice and muddled tactics that permeated a doomed U.S. war effort in Vietnam”.
New releases from Mountain, Soul Asylum and Michael McDermott
ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
SUE TURNER welcomes a thoughtful, engaging book that lays bare the economic realities of global waste management
JOHN GREEN welcomes an insider account of the achievements and failures of the transition to democracy in Portugal
SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic
PETER MASON is enthralled by an assembly of objects, ancient and modern, that have lain in the mud of London’s river
The Years of Lyndon Johnson, vol 4: The passage of Power
Robert A Caro, The Bodley Head, £30
WHO wants to read a biography of Lyndon Johnson?
His presidency of the US from 1963-69 was hardly a memorable one. But this is not so much a book about a bland US president but a meticulous dissection of political and economic structures in the US. It is also a riveting read by one of the modern masters of historical writing.
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JOHN GREEN welcomes an insider account of the achievements and failures of the transition to democracy in Portugal
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