PETER MASON is beguiled by a fascinating account of the importance of cricket to immigrants from the Caribbean to the UK
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Best of 2018: Books
by GORDON PARSONS
Authoritative: Neil Faulkner
The new corporate version of Robin Hood is a betrayal of the anti-colonial hero of the people of yore, suggests DENNIS BROE
PETER MASON is gripped by a novel that confronts corporate callousness with those prepared to act to bring about change
KEN COCKBURN relishes the memoir of a translator, but wonders whether the autobiography underlying the impulse would make a better book
A mesmerising novel by Mexican Daniel Saldana Paris, and fierce poetry by Peruvian Dalmacia Ruiz-Rosas Samohod, and Jonathan Gonzalez
PAUL BUHLE an RAYMOND TYLER enjoy an issue of the radical comic WW3 that gives a platform to Palestinian artists, and uncensored commentary
NEIL FAULKNER’S A Radical History of the World (Pluto Press) is as exhaustive and authoritative as any attempt to record human history could be and it also reads with the ease of a novel.
Most impressive of all, however, is the author’s holistic approach. He recognises that every major turning point or revolution in humanity's journey has depended upon the natural, social, technological and geopolitical conditions of the time.
As Marx stated, people make their own history but they do not make it as they please and, if the final chapters paint the potential of a disastrous future, Faulkner spells out the lessons from the past and what must be done to avoid the end of history.
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GORDON PARSONS is enthralled by an erudite and entertaining account of where the language we speak came from
FIONA O’CONNOR recommends an accessible and entertaining survey of post-war French philosophy and its relation to contemporary capitalism
JOHN GREEN takes issue with a mainstream novel designed to denigrate the GDR
Two books and a film that examine cultural excavation and the impact of place on behaviour