ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
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Many Vietnams
GAVIN O’TOOLE recommends an account of the post WWII global movement that allied socialist countries against US imperialism
Transporting goods on the Ho Chi Minh Trail from North Vietnam to South Vietnam
SUE TURNER welcomes a thoughtful, engaging book that lays bare the economic realities of global waste management
JOHN GREEN welcomes an insider account of the achievements and failures of the transition to democracy in Portugal
SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic
PETER MASON is enthralled by an assembly of objects, ancient and modern, that have lain in the mud of London’s river
MICK McSHANE rubs shoulders with Mod legend Steve Craddock and joins in with the joyous Glasgow choir
DENNIS BROE sifts out the ideological bias of the newest TV series offerings, and picks out what to see, and what to avoid
North Korea, Tricontinentalism, and the Latin American Revolution, 1959–1970
Moe Taylor, Cambridge University Press, £85
A GENERATION on from the Cold War, it is easy to forget how every aspect of our lives was shaped for half a century by the existential confrontation between the capitalist and socialist worlds.
Given that, it is imperative we do not allow the latest showdown between the “free” world and its adversaries today to obscure the real driving force of anti-communism after 1945: US imperialism.
That motive becomes emphatically clear when we consider alongside the usual suspects of Russia and China the “rogue” states that Washington and its satellites today continue to isolate, demonise or threaten: Cuba, North Korea, Syria, Yemen, Palestine and so on.
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