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[[Category:New Reviews|Politics and Society]] __NOTOC__ <!-- Remove --> {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Dan JonesAlastair Humphreys|title=Magna Carta: The Making and Legacy of the Great CharterLocal
|rating=5
|genre=HistoryTravel |summary=Alastair Humphreys has walked and cycled all over the world. And then written about it. For what do we – this book he walked and by courtesy of a lengthy timeline in history, would the Americans likewise – most likely owe thanks cycled very close to a spigurnel? home and then wrote about it. What is the most revered legal document As he says in historyhis introduction, which sets out the rights of man – but also has time book is an attempt ''to talk share what I have learnt about widows' rightssome big issues from a year exploring a small map. Nature loss, fish trapspollution, land use and to be both sexist and to discuss access, agriculture, the importance to peoplefood system, rewilding…''s estates to debts owed Jewish moneylenders? What will probably be One of the only notable historical experience joys of Britain in 1215, when we finally get diverted from thinking the book for me was that the biggest thing he learned about WWI and discuss the 800 years all of something elsethese things was that there are no easy answers, even though the authority of no less than the Pope declared it null single 'right or wrong', that every upside is likely to have a downside for somebody and void within ten weeks of its being finished?that there are some hard choices ahead.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781858853</amazonuk>1785633678
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Krishna BhattEdel Rodriguez|title=The Royal EnigmaWorm: A Cuban American Odyssey|rating=24|genre=Historical FictionGraphic Novels|summary=There is absolutely nothing wrong with books that cross genresWe're in childhood, and we're in Cuba. The best historical novels are revolution has happened, and Castro, first thought of as a saviour of the country, has proven himself a Communist, and not done nearly enough to create a level playing field for all. Well, those hours-long speeches of his 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 much history he would probably be shipped off to some minor pro-Communism skirmish, such as fictionAngola) and the father being watched and watched, and not liked for his successful photography business, success being frowned upon. HoweverThe mother gets the couple jobs with the party to ease some of the heat, but in this sultry island country, it remains the kind of heat forcing you out of the kitchen…|isbn=1474616720}}{{Frontpage|author=Sarah Wilson|title=This One Wild and Precious Life: the path back to connection in a fractured world|rating=3.5|genre= Lifestyle|summary= My favourite Mary Oliver line is the one in which she asks ''What is a golden rule it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?'' I get to love that a book must know who line so much because my answer is ''This! Precisely this.'' I'm lucky enough to be living my one wild and what it precious life the way I want to. Sarah Wilson isequally lucky. One of 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 life we want – the problems with The Royal Enigma best life that we could be living. Her answer is an unequivocal ''no, we are not''. Don't care what you're doing, she thinks you (we, I) could be doing more…And she's effing furious about the fact that it suffers from a serious identity crisiswe are not.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>B005Q8QCTY</amazonuk>1785633848
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Adrian Hart1785633457|title=That's RacistCharging Around: How Exploring the regulation Edges of speech and thought divides us allEngland by Electric Car|author=Clive Wilkinson|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and SocietyTravel|summary=Adrian Hart Clive Wilkinson has a long history of campaigning against racism, not least because he was subjected to racial abuse when he was at schooltravelling by unconventional means with a preference for slow travel. With jet-black hair and a complexion that was just ''slightly'' darker than was normal As he was neared his eightieth birthday the closest that his school had to someone who might be idea of Pakistani origin. It was only name calling from a group of boys but exploring the experience stuck and he's put much edges of his working life where his mouth isEngland in an electric car was not totally outrageous. SoIn fact, you might expect that he would it should be a devotee of the zero tolerance approach to racist speechpleasant holiday for Clive and his wife, Joan, but heshouldn's far from certain that this is the right way to go and believes that this might be causing more divisions in society than racism itself.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845407555</amazonuk>t it?
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1529153050|title=Encyclopedia ParanoiacaBritain's Best Political Cartoons 2022|author=Henry Beard and Christopher CerfTim Benson
|rating=4
|genre=Popular ScienceHumour|summary=WeSeeking 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''re screwed. Wherever we look, whatever we think of doing, there is a reason why Sharp eyes will have noted that we shouldn't be doing it, and people re not yet through the year: the cartoons run from 4 September 2021 to back that reason up with scientific data31 August 2022. Take any aspect of your daily life – what you eat, how you work, how you rest even, Who can imagine what you touch – all have problems that could provoke a serious illness or worse. And outside that daily sphere there are economic disasters, nuclear meltdowns, errant AI scientists and passing comets that could turn our world upside down at the blink of an eye. Perhaps then you better read this book first – for it may well turn out will be to be your last…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0715649213</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=How To Be A Conservative|author=Roger Scruton|rating=3.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=Roger Scruton has been described by Jesse Norman as 'one of the few intellectually authoritative voices in British conservatism'. His central theme come in this book is to defend and champion the value of the home, a society based on free association and the nation state. The simplest of biographical sections demonstrates that the author was brought up not from ‘privileged’ stock but within a Labour-voting, lower middle class family, to demonstrate that his conservatism was not inherited but a product of his own intellectual journey.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472903765</amazonuk>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
|rating=4
|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>
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1739593901
|title=22 Ideas About The Future
|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=''Our future will be more complex than we expected. Instead of flying cars, we got night-vision killer drones and automated elderly care with geolocation surveillance bracelets to track grandma.''
}}
{{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
|rating=5
|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
|rating=4
|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>
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1638485216
|title=Black, White, and Gray All Over: A Black Man's Odyssey in Life and Law Enforcement
|author=Frederick Reynolds
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=''Corruption is not department, gender or race specific. It has everything to do with character. Period.''
''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
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|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
|genre=Politics and Society
|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
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Wow! This is a most surprising economics book. Behavioral economists (if you’ll excuse the American spelling) investigate people’s buying behaviour and consuming patterns. ''How am 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 able to be in double percentage point increases year so transparent on year?). A fair bit of manipulation to ensure that a company survives is already part paper about rape, malpractice and parcel of our lives. If you’d asked me before I read this bookpoverty, yet still compartmentalise? It's as though I would have lined up that sort of consumer marketing psychology alongside banking as profiteering. However … these guys are different: they really do seem to care about the plight of were telling the underprivileged, and they come truth whilst simultaneously running away from an academic setting, rather than a commercial oneit.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847946747</amazonuk>}}''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert A Caro0008350388|title=The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Means of AscentWe Need to Talk About Money|author=Otegha Uwagba
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and Society
|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
}}
{{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
|rating=4.5
|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
|genre=Politics and Society
|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.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1523092734|title=Peas and Queues: The Minefield of Modern MannersA Women's Guide to Claiming Space|author=Sandi ToksvigEliza Van Cort
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and Society
|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)
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Education Under Siege: Why There is a Better AlternativePolly Barton|authortitle=Peter MortimoreFifty Sounds
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|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
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Stephen Fabes
|title=Signs of Life
|rating=5
|genre=Travel
|summary= I was brought up on maps and first-person narratives of tales of far away places. I was birth-righted wanderlust and curiosity. Unfortunately, I didn't inherit what Dr. Stephen Fabes clearly had which was the guts to simply go out and do it. I also didn't inherit the kind of steady nerve, ability to talk to strangers and basic practicality that would have meant that I would have survived if I had been gifted with the requisite 'bottle'. In order words I'm not the sort of person who will get on a bike outside a London hospital and not come home for six years. Fabes did precisely that.
|isbn=1788161211
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1504321383
|title=Single, Again, and Again, and Again
|author=Louisa Pateman
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=''You can't be happy and fulfilled on your own. You are not complete until you find a man''.
}}
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