A handful of observations about this book — the first in the long-running Alex Cross crime novels. First, it is a very long book, much longer than, for example, Roses are Red, the sixth book…Read more…
Review: Roses Are Red, by James Patterson
Years ago, when James Patterson was an author and not a brand, he wrote some terrific stories. This is one of them and I’ve read it at least twice. It’s a textbook example of how…Read more…
Review: Write a Bestselling Thriller, by Matthew Branton
This is a good, short introduction to the subject for anyone thinking about writing a thriller. While much of the text is formulaic (it’s part of the “Teach Yourself” series, so there are a lot…Read more…
The ILO and Russia: Global unions must choose sides
When Russia launched its unprovoked and illegal invasion of Ukraine more than two years ago, most trade unionists — like most people — looked on with horror. Unions around the world were swift to condemn…Read more…
Review: The American Revolution 1774 – 83, by Daniel Marston
This is a beautifully-illustrated, short history of America’s war for independence and the global war it triggered. But it is very much a work of “military history” focussed on the names of commanders and locations…Read more…
The Zinoviev Letter after 100 years
With only weeks to go before a general election, and with a Labour victory expected, I am reminded of events of a century ago. In 1924, the minority Labour government headed by Ramsay MacDonald was…Read more…
Review: In the Garden of Beasts – Love and terror in Hitler’s Berlin, by Erik Larson
At first, this did not look promising at all. Erik Larson, who always writes well and chooses some great subjects, took on the story of one American family who lived in Berlin during the first…Read more…
Nakba Day
Palestinians and their supporters around the world refer to 15 May as “Nakba Day” — a day marking the anniversary of the creation of the State of Israel. This year, the UK-based Palestine Solidarity Campaign…Read more…
Georgia at a crossroads
A year ago, the increasingly rightist, pro-Russian Georgian government proposed legislation that shocked the country. Under the new law, individuals or organisations that received money from foreign donors would have to declare themselves as “foreign…Read more…
Review: How to Win an Information War: The Propagandist Who Outwitted Hitler, by Peter Pomerantsev
A publisher I know used to say that if you want to sell more books, put “Hitler” in the title. In this case, someone may have been taking his advice. It was not Hitler who…Read more…
Review: The Obstacle is the Way, by Ryan Holiday
Ryan Holiday is a young-ish American marketing executive who seems to have stumbled upon stoicism and turned the philosophy of the ancient Greeks into a real money spinner. His books are fast reads and mega-best-sellers,…Read more…
Third Period, First Republic: The use and mis-use of symbols
Rough sleepers have returned to Finsbury Park and their various belongings lay pressed against the walls of a railway bridge. Just above where they sleep, the walls are plastered with posters asking “Are you a…Read more…
From Madrid to Kyiv
A little more than 85 years ago, on 28 March 1939, the Spanish civil war ended. The fascist forces under the command of General Franco entered the capital, Madrid, and it was all over. Spain…Read more…
Review: Boris Savinkov: Renegade on the Left, by Richard B. Spence
Writing a biography of a man as complex — and elusive — as Boris Savinkov is not an easy task. But Richard Spence has done an exemplary job of this. HIs 1991 book is comprehensive…Read more…
Boris Savinkov: Forgotten revolutionary
While there have been countless books and articles about V.I. Lenin, whose death in 1924 has been marked in this newspaper and elsewhere, there are some Russian revolutionaries of that time who have long been…Read more…
Gaza and the Left, Here and There
Something strange is happening in American and British politics this year. According to a report in this week’s Sunday Times, the Labour Party under the leadership of Keir Starmer seems on course not just to…Read more…
Review: The Ochrana – The Russian Secret Police, by A.T. Vassilyev
This 1930 book is not about that Russian secret police — the one that comes to mind — but about an earlier one, the one which author A.T. Vassilyev commanded until the collapse of the…Read more…
Textile workers strike in Egypt
The 3,700 female workers in the Mahalla textile factories were furious. The Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, had earlier in the month raised the minimum wage to 6,000 Egyptian pounds — the equivalent of just…Read more…
Review: Undercover Agents in the Russian Revolutionary Movement – The SR Party, 1902 -14, by Nurit Schleifman
The Socialist Revolutionary Party, like other groups working in opposition to the autocratic regime that ruled Russia until 1917, was rife with secret police agents. The most famous of these, Ievno Azef, rose to become…Read more…
Antisemitism and Israel
For sixty years, the Anti-Defamation League has been profiling Americans to try to monitor antisemitic beliefs. For the first half century of doing that, they found a fairly steady and ongoing decline in anti-Jewish sentiment….Read more…