DAVID RENTON is puzzled by an ambitious attempt to look back on world culture from the future without engaging with or understanding it
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Left Lives in 20th-century Ireland, Vol 2
Invaluable biographies of trade union and labour movement activists ignored in mainstream histories
Unsung heroine: Sylvia Meehan, women’s rights campaigner
[Eamonn Farrell] 
MICHAEL STEWART applauds a fun send-up of the substandard Agatha Christie whodunnit
LEO BOIX reviews a novella by Brazilian Ana Paula Maia, and poetry by Peruvian Giancarlo Huapaya, and Chilean Elvira Hernandez
BRENT CUTLER unpicks the cryptic clues of a book within a book within a murder mystery
Reviews of the Neil Charles Quartet, the Freddie Hubbard Quintet, and the Olie Brice Quartet
GLENN BURGESS suggests that, despite his record in Spain, Orwell’s enduring commitment to socialist revolution underpins his late novels
THIS second volume of biographies of leading left-wing figures in or from 20th-century Ireland is a valuable follow-on from the first.
Its 12 essays fills a huge gap, given that much of history taught at school or fed via the media is about monarchs, generals, prime ministers, top politicians or celebrities, with the valuable contribution made by men and women in the trade union and labour movement invariably ignored or marginalised.
The lives of some of the selfless heroes of the working-class and progressive movements are illuminated and given their rightful place in the pubic record, among them Rodney Bickerstaffe, Dominic Behan, banner-makers WL Reynolds, Thomas Kain and Jer O’Leary, trade unionist and politician Brendan Corish, Irish Labour Party politician Pat Devlin and Irish Workers League and Communist Party of Ireland member John Swift.
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JOHN GREEN recommends an Argentinian film classic on re-release - a deliciously cynical tale of swindling and double-cross
JOHN GREEN is fascinated by a very readable account of Britain’s involvement in South America
JOHN GREEN is stirred by an ambitious art project that explores solidarity and the shared memory of occupation
JOHN GREEN applauds an excellent and accessible demonstration that the capitalist economy is the biggest threat to our existence
