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[[Category:New Reviews|Politics and Society]] __NOTOC__ <!-- Remove --> {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alastair Humphreys|title=Encyclopedia ParanoiacaLocal|rating=5|genre=Travel |summary= Alastair Humphreys has walked and cycled all over the world. And then written about it. For this book he walked and cycled very close to home and then wrote about it. As he says in his introduction, the book is an attempt ''to share what I have learnt about some big issues from a year exploring a small map. Nature loss, pollution, land use and access, agriculture, the food system, rewilding…'' One of the joys of the book for me was that the biggest thing he learned about all of these things was that there are no easy answers, no single 'right or wrong', that every upside is likely to have a downside for somebody and that there are some hard choices ahead.|isbn=1785633678}}{{Frontpage|author=Henry Beard and Christopher CerfEdel Rodriguez|title=Worm: A Cuban American Odyssey

|genre=Popular ScienceGraphic Novels|summary=We're screwedin childhood, and we're in Cuba. Wherever we lookThe revolution has happened, and Castro, whatever we think first thought of as a saviour of doingthe country, there is has proven himself a reason why we shouldn't be doing itCommunist, and people not done nearly enough to back that reason up with scientific datacreate a level playing field for all. Take any aspect Well, those hours-long speeches of your daily life – what you eathis were kind of taking his time away. Our narrator's family weren't in the happiest of places here, an uncle refusing to be the good soldier the country demanded (especially as he would probably be shipped off to some minor pro-Communism skirmish, how you worksuch as Angola) and the father being watched and watched, how you rest evenand not liked for his successful photography business, what you touch – all have problems that could provoke a serious illness or worsesuccess being frowned upon. And outside that daily sphere there are economic disastersThe mother gets the couple jobs with the party to ease some of the heat, nuclear meltdownsbut in this sultry island country, errant AI scientists and passing comets that could turn our world upside down at it remains the blink kind of an eye. Perhaps then heat forcing you better read this book first – for it may well turn out to be your last…of the kitchen…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0715649213</amazonuk>1474616720

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=How To Be A ConservativeSarah Wilson|authortitle=Roger ScrutonThis One Wild and Precious Life: the path back to connection in a fractured world

|genre=Politics and SocietyLifestyle|summary=Roger Scruton has been described by Jesse Norman as 'My favourite Mary Oliver line is the one of the few intellectually authoritative voices in British conservatismwhich she asks '. His central theme in this book 'What is it you plan to defend do with your one wild and champion the value of the home, a society based on free association precious life?'' I get to love that line so much because my answer is ''This! Precisely this.'' I'm lucky enough to be living my one wild and precious life the nation stateway I want to. Sarah Wilson is equally lucky. The simplest of biographical sections demonstrates In her book that takes Oliver's words as her title (though I can't see that she acknowledges the source) she pushes us to think about whether we really ''are'' living the author was brought up life we want – the best life that we could be living. Her answer is an unequivocal ''no, we are not from ‘privileged’ stock but within a Labour-voting''. Don't care what you're doing, lower middle class familyshe thinks you (we, to demonstrate I) could be doing more…And she's effing furious about the fact that we are not.|isbn=1785633848}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1785633457|title=Charging Around: Exploring the Edges of England by Electric Car|author=Clive Wilkinson|rating=5|genre=Travel|summary=Clive Wilkinson has a history of travelling by unconventional means with a preference for slow travel. As he neared his conservatism eightieth birthday the idea of exploring the edges of England in an electric car was not inherited but totally outrageous. In fact, it should be a product of pleasant holiday for Clive and his own intellectual journey.wife, Joan, shouldn't it?}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529153050|title=Britain's Best Political Cartoons 2022|author=Tim Benson|rating=4|genre=Humour|amazonuksummary=<amazonuk>1472903765</amazonuk>Seeking some light relief from the current political turmoil which is coming to seem more and more like an adrenaline sport, I was nudged towards ''Britain's Best Political Cartoons of 2022''. Sharp eyes will have noted that we're not yet through the year: the cartoons run from 4 September 2021 to 31 August 2022. Who can imagine what there will be to come in the 2023 edition?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=B0B7289HKQ|title=The Wall Between UsConversations Across America: A Father and Son, Alzheimer's, and 300 Conversations Along the TransAmerica Bike Trail that Capture the Soul of America|author=Matthew SmallKari Loya

|genre=Politics and SocietyTravel|summary=In this personal account of Kari (that rhymes with ‘sorry’, by the way) wanted to spend some time with his visit to Israel father and the West Bank, Small journals his period between two jobs seemed like a good time spent with people he meets along to do it. The decision was made to ride the way and attempts Trans America Bike Trail from Yorktown, Virginia to make sense Astoria, Oregon - all 4250 miles of it - in 2015. They had 73 days to do it - slightly less than the conflict recommended time - but there were factors which pointed this up as more of a challenge that has dominated this area it would be for many most people who considered taking it on. Merv Loya was 75 years. Small openly admits the issue there is not a simple one old and his visit reinforces the fact that there are many complexities preventing peace he was suffering from happeningearly-stage Alzheimer's.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910266302</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Jonathan Shaw|title=Britain in I've got a Perilous World: The Strategic Defence and Security Review we need |rating=4couple of confessions to make.5|genre=Politics I'm not keen on short stories as I find it easy to read a few stories and Society|summary=The 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review has stayed in then forget to return to the mind for the wrong reasons: rather than looking book. There's got to develop be a strategy, very compelling hook to examine keep me engaged. Then there's science fiction: far too often it's the short and long term threats technology which takes centre stage along with the country faced, the emphasis was on cutting costs, with some cuts appearing ludicrous at first glanceworld-building. In It's human beings who fascinate me: the intervening years there have been occasions when it was difficult not to wonder if the United Kingdom was poorly equipped - technology and without clear-cut aims - as a result of the 2010 reviewworld scape are purely incidental. The opportunity to put this right comes in 2015 and Major General Jonathan Shaw looks not at So, what the Review should saydid I think of a book of twenty-two science fiction short stories? Well, but at how I loved it should be tackled.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908323817</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=The EconomistJane Goodall and Douglas Abrams |title=Pocket World in Figures 2015The Book of Hope |rating=4.5|genre=ReferencePolitics and Society |summary=There are people who don't understand the joy of raw data: no accompanying analysis (or spin) - just a collection of figures relevant The done thing is to read a particular circumstance. If book all the way through before you're one of those people then this book will mean little sit down to youreview it. I’m making an exception here, but if you because I don’t want a pocket (well, certainly handbag or briefcase) work to lose any of the experience of reference then reading this amazing book will be a treasure. , I once gave a copy want to a diplomat and he kept his wife awake until the early hours capture it as he came across another gem which she had to know without delayit hits me. The 2015 edition And it is the twenty fourth hitting me. This beautiful book has me in the series - and diplomatic (and similar) spouses everywhere should prepare themselves for the onslaughttears.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781252734</amazonuk>024147857X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1788360737|title=Stand and DeliverArtivism: A Design The Battle for Successful GovernmentMuseums in the Era of Postmodernism|author=Ed StrawAlexander Adams|rating=4.52|genre=Politics and Society|summary=Confidence Can art ever be apolitical? All art is political because art is not made in politicians a vacuum. It is at an all-time lowmade by people. Antonio Gramsci stated that ‘’Every man… contributes to modifying the social environment in which he develops’’. In factTherefore, an alarming number of Britons express outright contempt, not just for their leaders, but for the entire all art must be political class - for the politicans themselves, even implicitly. Alexander Adams in his new book ‘Artivism: The Battle for Museum in the civil servants standing behind them, even Era of Postmodernism’ is adamant that art is freer when it is art for the Westminster bubble art’s sake. The recent trend of commentators and policy wonksso-called artivism has caused artists to become more overtly political (read: left wing). We vote for them in everTheir seemingly grass roots movements have been astroturfed by large “left-decreasing numbers wing” donors and even those who continue media elites hoping to vote often do not feel represented. Worse still, the younger you are, the create a more likely you are to be politically disengagedglobalist and progressive regime. We're in danger of losing an entire generation from the political processOr at least that’s what Alexander Adams believes. How can this be good for a democracy?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>099294760X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1398508632|title=Harry's Last StandThe Wilderness Cure|author=Harry Leslie SmithMo Wilde

|genre=Politics and SocietyLifestyle|summary=RAF veteran Harry Leslie Smith rose to prominence last year with It had been on the cards for a famous Guardian article 'This while but it was the week-long consumer binge which pushed Mo Wilde into beginning her yearof eating only wild food. The end of November, I will wear a poppy for particularly in Central Scotland was perhaps not the last best time' about the way to start, in which a world where the remembrance of those who died in the great wars has normal sores had been co-opted to justify today’s military conflictsexacerbated by climate change, Brexit and a pandemic. Here, he tackles themes Wilde had a few advantages: the area around her was a known habitat with a variety of povertyterrains. She had electricity which allowed her to run a fridge, political corruption, unemploymentfreezer and dehydrator. She had a car - and fuel. Most importantly, and she had shelter: this was not a lack of hope felt by so many people todayplan to ''live'' wild just to live off its produce.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848317263</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1529149800|title=Angela MerkelThings You Can Do: The Chancellor How to Fight Climate Change and Her WorldReduce Waste|author=Stefan KorneliusEduardo Garcia and Sara Boccaccini Meadows

|genre=BiographyHome and Family|summary=You have to admire the lady, this rather awkward and shy daughter of a staunch Lutheran pastor who himself had been born as We begin with a Polish Catholictelling story. His daughter studied with such intelligence All the birds and application that soon brought her academic success particularly in Russian animals fled when the forest fire took hold and finally in Quantum Chemistry. At the age most of 26, she obtained her doctorate them stood and - in passingwatched, it rather seems - her first husband, the physicist Ulrike Merkelunable to think of anything they could do. Her rise The tiny hummingbird flew to power was rapid and took place through the period in which the DDR collapsed as Russian policy under Gorbachev changed. Along with a wry river and dry sense began taking tiny amounts of humour Angela Merkel’s personality is water and flying back to drop them into the embodiment of the characteristic known in German as fire. The animals laughed: what good was that doing. ''I'fleissigm doing the best I can'' - hardworking, seduloussaid the hummingbird. And that, diligent and assiduousreally, is the only way that we will solve the problem of climate change – by each of us doing what we can, however small that might be.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846883180</amazonuk>

''One more body just wouldn't matter''. The murder of George Floyd, a forty-six-year-old black man, on 25 May 2020 by Derek Chauvin, a forty-four-year-old police officer, in the US city of Minneapolis sent shock waves around the world. We rarely see pictures of a murder taking place but Floyd's death was an exception. The image of Chauvin kneeling on George's neck is not one which I'll ever forget and the protests which followed cannot have been unexpected. There was a backlash against the police - and not just in Minneapolis: whatever their colour or creed they were ''all'' tarred by the Chauvin brush.}}{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=An Atheist's History of BeliefMatthieu Aikins|authortitle=Matthew KnealeThe Naked Don't Fear the Water

|summary=I’ve been an atheist since I was old enough It's easy to take forget at times that The Naked Don't Fear the Water isn't actually fiction, because it reads very much like a view on the subjectwell-paced thriller at times. (Many atheists would argue that we’re all atheists at birthThis is not by any means a criticism, but that’s not rather a subject for testament to how well Matthieu Aikins – a book review). I did have Canadian citizen who decided to take Religious Studies accompany his friend as a refugee from Afghanistan through Europe – recounts a vast and at school but have entirely forgotten times painful journey. There are tense moments and gripping accounts of border crossings which had me on edge the whole way through. But it's written with a haunting and almost everything I learned!lyrical quality that allows the reader to perfectly envisage the environments and people described.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099584425</amazonuk>B09N9157T6

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1785633074|title=NotebooksStaggering Hubris|author=Josh Berry|rating=4.5|genre=Humour|summary=Members of Parliament like us to believe that the country is run by politicians, 1922headed by the Prime minister - the ''primus inter pares'' (that's for those of you who are Eton and Oxbridge educated) but the reality is that the ''prime'' movers are the special advisers - the SPADS -86who are the driving force behind the government. We are in the privileged position of having access to the memoirs of Rafe Hubris, the man who was behind the skilful control of the Covid crisis which was completely contained by the end of 2020. You might not know the name now but he will certainly be the man to watch.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1846276772|title=The End of Bias: How We Change Our Minds|author=Michael OakeshottJessica Nordell|rating=34.5

|summary=Michael Oakeshott Anyone who is usually described as a conservative thinker. According not an able, white man understands bias in that they may no longer even recognise the extent to Perry Anderson, his work influenced John Majorwhich they suffer from it: it's style simply a part of politics; he named him in everyday life. White men will always come first. The able will come before the disabled. Jobs, promotions, higher salaries are the London Review of Books in 1992 as one of four ‘outstanding European theorists preserve of the intransigent Right’white man. Luke O’Sullivan, Even when those who edited this collection wouldn't pass the medical become a part of notebooksan organisation it's rare that their views are heard, has often said that he considers such descriptions limitingtheir concerns are acknowledged. O’Sullivan is clearly enthusiastic about Oakeshott’s work It's personally appalling and strove to enable these notebooks, spanning a period degrading for the individuals on the receiving end of over sixty years, to be publishedthe bias but it's not just the individuals who are negatively impacted.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845400542</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1529148251|title=The Why AxisMisfits: Hidden Motives and the Undiscovered Economics of Everyday LifeA Personal Manifesto|author=Uri Gneezy and John ListMichaela Coel

|summary=Wow! This is a most surprising economics book''How am I able to be so transparent on paper about rape, malpractice and poverty, yet still compartmentalise? It's as though I were telling the truth whilst simultaneously running away from it. ''

Behavioral economists (if you’ll excuse the American spelling) investigate people’s buying behaviour and consuming patterns. I guess we know about that already because supermarkets here lull us into buying three for the price of two, to come back next week for £10 off a £100, or to garner extra points on a loyalty card (Oh why can’t they just go for a cheaper price at the point of sale? Why do profits have Before you start reading ''Misfits'' you need to be in double percentage point increases year on year?). A fair bit of manipulation to ensure that a company survives is already part and parcel certain frame of our livesmind. If you’d asked me before I You're not going to read this a book, I would have lined up that sort of consumer marketing psychology alongside banking as profiteeringessays or a self-help book. However … these guys are different: they really do seem You're going to read writing which was inspired by Michaela Coel's 2018 MacTaggart Lecture to care about professionals within the plight of television industry at the underprivileged, and they come from an academic setting, rather than a commercial oneEdinburgh TV Festival.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847946747</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Alain de Botton|title=The News: A User You might be ''reading's Manual|rating=4|genre=Politics and Society|summary=Alain de Botton maintains that 'the newsbook but you need to ''listen'' has assumed to the position in our lives which was once occupied by religion, with some consumers viewing it as often words as every fifteen minutes (slight blush there - letthough you's say about every hour...). Furthermore, we do it completely unprotected against every political scandal or celebrity storyre in the lecture theatre. The sub-title disjointedness will fade away and you'A User's Manual' sets out to remedy thisll be carried on a cloud of exquisite writing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00HYGYIGA</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert A Caro0008350388|title=The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Means of AscentWe Need to Talk About Money|author=Otegha Uwagba

|summary=There are few billionaire black African entrepreneurs''To be a dark-skinned Black woman is to be seen as less desirable, less hireable, less intelligent and ultimately less valuable than my light-skinned counterparts. ..'' As Andrew Rugasira points out in ''A Good African StoryWe Need to Talk About Money'', the people who make money from African exports are virtually always white Westerners. Even Fair Trade participants remain skewed by the status quo of trade barriers which discriminate against Third World countries.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099571927</amazonuk>}}Otegha Uwagba

{{newreview|title=Play It Again: An Amateur Against The Impossible|author=Alan Rusbridger|rating=4''0.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=I’ve maintained for a long time that I’ll read anything, if it’s well-enough written. So it was with this fascinating memoir, even though it’s a year 7% of English Literature GCSE students in the life of an amateur pianist, and I don’t play the piano – or indeed England study a note of music. I couldn’t even have placed the name Alan Rusbridger in his professional role before I read the book. A quick browse through the first couple by a writer of pages on Amazon revealed that the author could indeed tell colour while only 7% study a clear story: it is his stock-in-trade as Editor of the Guardian. And the book duly held me through by a messy, interrupted week of bedtime readingwoman.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099554747</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=Winter|author=Adam Gopnik|rating=4|genre=Reference|summary=In this collection of five essays, each one offering a unique and fascinating perspective on the season of winter, Adam Gopnik takes the reader on a captivating journey, exploring history, art and society, through ''Romantic Winter '', ''Radical Winter'', ''Recuperative Winter'', ''Recreational Winter'' and ''Remembering WinterThe Bookseller''. In each essay, Gopnik focuses on one or two central themes, whilst also touching on surrounding ideas. For example, in Romantic Winter his central topics are art and poetry, however, issues such as changing society, technology, sex and culture are also explored, in relation to these pivotal notions. He also includes two sections featuring collections of artwork to illustrate his viewpoints, which add a charming, individual touch to this book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780874472</amazonuk>}}29 June 2021

{{newreview|title=Outraged of Tunbridge Wells: Original Complaints Otegha Uwagba came to the UK from Middle England|author=Nigel Cawthorne|rating=4|genre=Humour|summary=Kenya when she was five years old. Her sisters were seven and nine. It was ever thus… her mother who came first, with her father joining them later. cyclists go too fast, without using a hooter or lights; there are hoodlums everywhere one looksThe family was hard-working, principled and no public conveniences; people pretend to determined that their children would have qualifications and degrees they haven't rightfully earned; buses are too busy with shopping women who should be indoors already, cooking for their working menfolk… the best education possible. It's There was always a very clever idea to show exactly what is behind the 'disgusted painful awareness of Tunbridge Wells' tag, and as money although this did not translate into a book to be shelved alongside those with shortage of anything: it was simply carefully harvested. When Otegha was ten the wackier letters sent to the ''Daily Telegraph''family acquired a car. For Otegha, these selections from the Royal town's press itself make education meant a great eye-opener scholarship to the complaints a private school in London and complainants of Kentthen a place at New College, Oxford.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908096918</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Richard Brook|title=How Much have Global Problems Cost the World?Understanding Human Nature: A Scorecard from 1900 User's Guide to 2050|author=Bjorn Lomborg (Editor)Life

|genre=Politics and SocietyLifestyle|summary=The authors are leading researchers in their fieldsI am a firm believer that sometimes we choose books, and their papers have been critiqued by peer-reviewerssometimes books choose us. Each of the chapters reports the results of a modelling exerciseIn my case, examining progress or decline in this is one of ten key areasthe latter. Not so very long ago, including armed conflictif I had come across this book I'd have skimmed it, trade barriersfound some of it interesting, malnutritionbut it would not have 'hit home' in the way that it does now. I believe it came to me not just because I was likely to give it a favourable review [ ''full disclosure The Bookbag's u.s.p. is that people chose their own books rather than getting them randomly, air pollution, ecosystem and biodiversity, health, water and sanitation. Key economicso there is a predisposition towards expecting to like the book, growth and other variables from credible sources provided even if it doesn't always turn out that way'' ] – but also because it is a common set of data and assumptionsbook I needed to read, used in each studyright now.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1107679338</amazonuk>1800461682

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tony Benn1787332098|title=The Last Diaries: A Blaze of Autumn Sunshine|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=Throughout my life I've found that whilst I might not always agree with Tony Benn's politics, whatever he had How to say would give me food for thought - and frequently changed the way that I viewed a situation. He's Love Animals in a wonderful mixture of supreme intelligence and humanity which is so rarely found - particularly in modernHuman-day politics and it was with some misgivings that I opened this volume of his diaries, given that the slipcover speaks of the ''compensations and challenges of old age'' and ''the disadvantages of growing older, the loneliness of widowhood, the upheaval of moving from the family home of sixty years and the problems of failing health.'' I've always been relieved that Benn has never ''quite'' achieved the status of national treasure, but surely he couldn't be in decline?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091943876</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=What Should We Tell Our Daughters?: The Pleasures and Pressures of Growing Up FemaleShaped World|author=Melissa BennHenry Mance|rating=35

|summary='I am shocked when I read young feminists today blithely admitting that they don't know what second-wave feminists wroteWhen we do think about animals, we break them down into species and groups: cows, dogs, foxes, elephants and so on.And we assign them places in society: cows go on plates, dogs on sofas, foxes in rubbish bins, elephants in zoos, and millions of wild animals stay out there, ''somewhere,'' hopefully on the next David Attenborough series.''

As a twenty-something year old feminist, it pains me to admit how much this quote applied I was going to meargue. Having grown up knowing that college and university were paths I could definitely takemean, never being told that settling down cows are for cheese (I couldn't consider eating red meat...) and finding a husband was an important goal to have, and always getting the same opportunities as I much prefer my male peers elephants in the workplace, wild but then I'd never seen – or, at least, ''thought'' realised that I'd seen – was quibbling for the inequalities, misogyny sake of it. Essentially that quote sums up my attitude to animals - and chauvinism that were still apparently abundant in today's societyI consider myself an animal lover. The feminist movement If I had always seemed like an amazing wave to choose between the company of humans and the company of new ideas animals, I would probably choose the animals. I insisted that had happened forty or fifty years agoI read this book: no one was trying to stop me but I was initially reluctant. It was the reason my mother I eat cheese, eggs, chicken and fish and I were now able needed to work and find a role outside of either do so without guilt or change my choices. I suspected that making the homedecision would not be comfortable.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848546270</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1523092734|title=Peas and Queues: The Minefield of Modern MannersA Women's Guide to Claiming Space|author=Sandi ToksvigEliza Van Cort

|summary=Dear Sandi ''She brings a hug-kick-thunderclap that every woman needs in her life. Again and again and again.'' (Alma Derricks, former CMO, Cirque du Soleil RSD)

You are my all time favourite celebrity lesbadyke, ''To claim space is to live the life of choosing unapologetically and one of bravely. It is to live the reasons I’m so very excited to be heading to Denmark this coming weekend (are all people there like life you? Please say yes). For this alone, I had to get my mitts on your latest offering. I wasn’t that fussed about obtaining a book on manners previously, having 've always thought mine were quite ok, but I knew your take on the matter would be suitably hilarious and well worth a read. I was not wrongwanted.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781250324</amazonuk>}}''

{{newreview|title=Global Modernity and Other Essays|author=Tom Rubens|rating=4|genre=Politics and Society|summary=It’s been difficult Sometimes the reviewing gods are generous: at a time when violence against women is much in the news, ''A Women's Guide to write Claiming Space'' by Eliza Van Cort dropped onto my desk. Now - to be clear - this reviewbook is not a 'how to disable your attacker with two simple jabs' manual: it's something far more effective, but discussion at the moment seems to be about how women can be ''protected''. The book’s eclectic nature I've always thought that women need to rise above this, with subject matter ranging from Nietzsche to the English Police Forcebe people who don't need protection, people who claim their own space. If all women did this, makes it difficult those few men who are violent to summarise and secondly, I’m no academic and philosophy is women would realise that we are not just HARD|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845405633</amazonuk>an easy target to be used to prove that they are big men.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Education Under Siege: Why There is a Better AlternativePolly Barton|authortitle=Peter MortimoreFifty Sounds

|summary=Peter MortimoreWhere do I start? I could start with where Barton herself starts, with the question ''s thoroughgoing analysis of the absurdities of current educational practice and prescriptions Why Japan?'' Japan has been on my radar for finding a far better alternative deserves a wide readershipwhile and if the world hadn't gone into melt-down I would have visited by now. It is I may get there later this year, but I am not just an organisation hopeful. And like Barton, I don't know the answer to the question ''why Japan?'' She explains her feelings in respect of the question in the first essay, which is under siege but on the sound ''giro' '' – which she describes as his personal anecdotes indicatebeing, more vigorously than his rigorously argued statisticsamong other things, people are suffering. Parents are anxious, teachers badly led and burdened with confused policies and worst the sound of all pupils are pressurised from early infancy. Reading his book ''every party where you might be forgiven for wondering a) why so many young students are being abused by such distress and b) as Cicero might have asked, to introduce yourself''Cui bono'', to whose benefit? Professor Mortimore outlines the positive alternatives suggested by international comparisons especially with Scandinavian methods. He argues that their procedures are more effective, that support students and produce a fairer, harmonious society.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1447311310</amazonuk>1913097501

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Inventing the Enemy: Essays on EverythingStephen Fabes|authortitle=Umberto EcoSigns of Life|rating=45|genre=HistoryTravel|summary=Imagine a sumptuous Italian feast in the sunlitI was brought up on maps and first-bathed ancient countryside near Milanperson narratives of tales of far away places. Next to you a gentleman talks I was birth-righted wanderlust and eats with furious energycuriosity. He tells of Dante Unfortunately, Cicero, and St Augustine and quotes a multitude of obscure troubadours from the Middle AgesI didn't inherit what Dr. He repeats himself, gestures flamboyantly, nudges you sharply in Stephen Fabes clearly had which was the ribs, belches guts to simply go out and even breaks winddo it. His conversation contains nuggets of information but in I also didn't inherit the flow kind of his discourse there is a fondness for iteration and reiteration. He throws bones over his shoulder and when he reaches the cheese course - definitely too much information on the mouldy bacteria! When you finally get up things the elderly gentleman has said prompt your imagination. You are better informedsteady nerve, intrigued and prodded ability to talk to examine his discourse again strangers and again, even basic practicality that would have meant that I would have survived if only to challenge what you have heard. Such are I had been gifted with the effects of reading Eco’s essays in requisite 'bottle'. In order words I'Inventing m not the Enemy''sort of person who will get on a bike outside a London hospital and not come home for six years. Fabes did precisely that.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099553945</amazonuk>1788161211

{{newreview|author=George Brock|title=Out of PrintThis was what Louisa Pateman was brought up to believe. It wasn't unkind: Newspapers, Journalism and it was simply the Business of News adults in the Digital Age|rating=3her life advising her as to what they thought would be best for her.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=At about It was reinforced by all those fairy tales where the turn of girl (she's usually fairly young) is rescued by the century most people on the street where I handsome prince who then marries her so that they can live had a morning paper delivered and a good number also got an evening paperhappily ever after. The queue at the newsagent in the village would Few girls are lucky enough to be out of the door each morning as people picked brought up a paper on their way to work. I can't remember when I last saw a newspaper boy (or girl) on their rounds 'without'' the expectation that they will marry and we only buy the weekend papers as an indulgence with a more leisurely breakfasthave children. Times have changed - It was a belief and thereit would be many years before Louisa would conclude that ''s no sign that the situation a belief is likely to settle in the near futurea choice''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749466510</amazonuk>

{{newreview|title=Against Their Will: The Secret History of Medical Experimentation on Children in Cold War America|author=Allen M Hornblum, Judith L Newman and Gregory J Dober|rating=5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=If I told you that doctors had been using human beings in the most horrible of medical experiments, that they had done things like tie toddlers Move to beds to insert live pathogens into their eyes, injected children with radiation, sterilised those thought to be subhuman and even castrated a child just to get a supply of tissue for a lab experiment, you might very reasonably assume I am talking abut Nazi Germany. I am not.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230341713</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=Across the Pond|author=Terry Eagleton|rating=3.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=Terry Eagleton is a Brit (Manchester born, no less) who now lives in Dublin with his American wife and children, so he seems well placed to write a book about the difference between us and them, there Yanks. Mid way through the pages, he even stops to tell us that in a way he had to write this, because when he wishes to read a book, he writes it. To read someone else’s, he suggests, is ‘an unwarranted invasion of their personal space’. That’s how so very British he is.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393347648</amazonuk>}}[[Newest Popular Science Reviews]]