GEOFF BOTTOMS relishes a profoundly human portrait of a family as it evolves across 55 years in Sheffield
For the few not the many
BOB NEWLAND recommends a book that challenges many erroneously held views on conservationism
INVASIVE: Awash National Park, Ethiopia
[Nina R/CC]
PAUL DONOVAN applauds an excellently crafted new musical that explores the life and death of Ruth Ellis
PAUL DONOVAN is tickled by the excruciating take-downs of one of the funniest, wittiest, political writers around.
RON JACOBS points out, via a transcription of Kissinger’s secret recordings, that Trump could never have existed without Nixon and Kissinger
ELLIS RAE is persuaded that the advantages of the ‘talking cure’ are superior to the treatment of mental illness with drugs
JOHN GREEN, MICHAL BONCZA and BELLA KATZ review The Good Boy, Broken English, and Don't Be Prey
The Invention of Green Colonialism
by Guillaume Blanc
Polity £15.99
MANY Morning Star readers will be familiar with the oft repeated justification that colonialists simply took over and developed land that was unoccupied. To make this a reality required the wholesale expulsion of indigenous peoples from their land in the Americas, Australia, New Zealand and throughout Africa.
Like many other progressives I have always considered the National Parks and their conservation agenda to be a good thing. This book challenges that idea.
Blanc’s study concentrates primarily on Africa especially Ethiopia. He argues that National Parks are based on the colonial era idea of “Eden” — an Africa consisting of vast forests and green spaces occupied by flora and fauna.
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