This is one of a crop of very short biographies of Soviet dictator published in recent years. Here is what I loved about it: Harold Shukman is a well-known academic, an expert on Soviet history….Read more…
Israel has had enough of Netanyahu
Public opinion polls in Israel consistently show that Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government cannot win the next election. The parties of the centre and left are consistently polling higher than those of the right. And it’s…Read more…
Review: Red Widow, by Alma Katsu
First of all, that’s a great title for a spy thriller. But “Red Widow” is not a great spy thriller. Having spent many hours reading it, I don’t see the point of the story. Not…Read more…
Why the Left should support increased defence spending
The Left has a long and proud history of anti-militarism. One cannot help but look back in admiration at the American Socialist leader Eugene V. Debs who went to prison after making an anti-war speech…Read more…
Belarus: Time for solidarity
Last week I interviewed Lizaveta Merliak, who runs Salidarnast, a group campaigning in support of the embattled independent trade union movement in Belarus. Liza was an activist in the Belarusian unions who was forced to…Read more…
Review: The Crossing Places, by Elly Griffiths
I read best-selling author Griffiths’ latest novel, which involved time travel, and in the end I wasn’t impressed. But I have friends who are really hooked on her crime fiction starring Dr Ruth Galloway, an…Read more…
Marx & Engels on the German elections
At the start of the Cold War, in 1952, a book came out in the USA and Britain entitled “The Russian Menace to Europe”. The authors were listed as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A…Read more…
Review: The Frozen People, by Elly Griffiths
Elly Griffiths is the author of two very successful series of novels, knocking off dozens of titles. She apparently has a huge fanbase. This book promises the be the first of a series featuring Ali…Read more…
Munich 2025: Return of the “Guilty Men”
As Karl Marx famously wrote in 1852, “Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as…Read more…
Review: Freud for Historians, by Peter Gay
“Both history and psychoanalysis are sciences of memory, both are professionally committed to skepticism, both trace causes in the past, both seek to penetrate behind pioues professions and subtle evasions.” So concludes historian Peter Gay…Read more…
Goma and Global Capitalism
“More than 100 female prisoners were raped and then burned alive during a jailbreak in the Congolese city of Goma, according to the UN.” That’s from a BBC report a few days ago. This horrific…Read more…
Review: All You Need to Know … Stalin, by Claire Shaw
This attractive, well-illustrated short biography of Stalin is part of a new series featuring prominent historians including Max Hastings and focussing on some of the biggest issues, including the Third Reich, the British Empire and…Read more…
Review: Roman Malinovsky: A Life Without a Cause, by Ralph Carter Elwood
This is not the first time I have read this short book and that’s probably because it is proving to be so useful to me in my understanding of how the tsarist police (the Okhrana)…Read more…
Trump’s Favourite President
Last Monday was Donald Trump’s first day in office as President and he raced to issue a series of “executive orders”. One would imagine that these reflected his highest priorities as well as those of…Read more…
Review: The Mind of Stalin: A Psychoanalytic Study, by Daniel Rancour-Laferriere
This is a surprisingly interesting book. In just 143 pages (including extensive footnotes), the author examines many aspects of the Soviet dictator’s life through the prism of Freudian psychoanalysis. And many of his conclusions are…Read more…
“A Complete Unknown”: Bob Dylan and the Stalinists
The new film about the early years of Bob Dylan’s career, “A Complete Unknown,” is a brilliant, must-see film. Timothée Chalamet is outstanding as the young Dylan — not only as an actor, but as…Read more…
Review: I Knew Stalin, by Anatole V. Baikaloff
No, he didn’t. The author of this short book, a former Bolshevik, apparently met Stalin briefly before the 1917 revolution, and says that the man didn’t make much of an impression. The remaining 90% of…Read more…
Review: Stalin: Czar of all the Russias, by Eugene Lyons
This is how history books used to look: no index, no footnotes, no bibliography. Life for historians was easier in 1940. Eugene Lyons, a journalist, was the first Western newspaperman to interview Josef Stalin in…Read more…
Review: The 8-week Blood Sugar Diet: Lose Weight Fast and Reprogramme your Body, by Dr Michael Mosley
Dr Michael Mosley, who sadly died last year, was one of the great communicators about science and medicine. His radio shows and podcasts taught millions of us about things we could do to improve our…Read more…
Georgia at a crossroads – and what Britain can do.
My first article to appear in Progressive Britain – click here to read it.