Can the class barrier ever be breached? Review of Snakes & Ladders by Selina Todd
Snakes & Ladders: The Great British Social Mobility Myth
Review: Putinomics - Power and Money in Resurgent Russia
RUSSIA, we are told, is different. Such is the vast nation’s fundamental divergence from Western norms that the nature of that difference is almost ineffable. That is why Russia has oligarchs, while Europe and America merely have an array of whimsical, untouchable billionaires; why Russia’s military adventurism and undemocratic client-states are condemned, while the interventions and allies of its NATO opponents should never lack the benefit of the doubt; and why its historically recent adherence to brutal capitalism is absolutely nothing like our own.
Review: When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir by Patrisse Khan-Cullors and Asha Bandele
When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir by Patrisse Khan-Cullors and Asha Bandele
Novel take on the 2014 indyref fails to capture passion
IN December of 2013, the Scottish playwright David Greig began a diverting exercise on Twitter which became known as the “Yes/No Plays”, a series of imagined exchanges between a supporter of Scottish independence and his Unionist nemesis/housemate. They were by turns satirical, poignant, bitter, absurdist, occasionally maudlin and often hilarious. Occasionally, Jimmy Reid’s face would appear in the moon.
Nuanced picture of Lenin: Dilemmas of Lenin, by Tariq Ali
The Dilemmas of Lenin: Terrorism, War, Empire, Love, Revolution
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Dylan and my Dad
Almost invariably, whenever I walked in the door of a sanctuary called Scoutscroft, my parents’ home in Coldingham, the music would already be playing. Edinburgh, Glasgow and the rest of a troubled world are distant here, though maybe not distant enough. There is often music while the old man works, and music once he has finished - for tonight, at least. Beach driftwood crackles on the fire; books surround a beaten-up armchair; cigarette smoke hangs in a permanent haze; a noble hound sprawls at his feet like a contortionist possum. And Bob Dylan plays.
James Connolly, my father and me: the Irish Citizen Army leader's great-great nephew on the centenary of the Easter Rising
A century ago on Easter Sunday, a rebellion aimed at ending British rule and establishing an independent Irish Republic was brutally quashed by the British Army. Thousands of rebels and civilians were killed or wounded, and co-organiser, Irish Citizen Army leader James Connolly, was executed by firing squad. How should we remember him? His great-great nephew Sean Bell, who learned about his ancestor from his father, Ian Bell, reflects on his legacy
