ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
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A rip-roaring historical romp through the author’s ancestors
The Burning of Washington (and the White House) on August 24 1814, illustration by Paul de Thoyras
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
The Broken Boy
by Patrick Cockburn
OR Books, £14.53
PATRICK COCKBURN is well-known as a Middle East war correspondent. He was left with a limp after falling victim as a child to the outbreak of polio in Co Cork in 1956.
His 2005 memoir of the epidemic has been republished, and includes a perspective on Covid gleaned from his observations of the spread and treatment of the “Kent variant” from his home in Canterbury.
His account of polio conveys powerfully the sense of panic and fear among parents, and the traumas suffered by children in isolation hospitals under the care of often insensitive and even cruel nursing staff.
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For Britain, direct military aid is just the tip of the iceberg compared to the spiralling energy crisis that has fueled inflation, driven millions into fuel poverty and inflated corporate profits, reveals HELEN MERCER
HELEN MERCER welcomes an account of how US labour leadership collaborated with the state and betrayed their membership
A look at the writing of war correspondent James Aldridge 40 years ago reminds us of the eastern perspective when a second front was finally opened on D-Day, 1944, says HELEN MERCER
HELEN MERCER casts an experienced eye over an ambitious exhibition that nevertheless contains painful gaps
