ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
Telling insights into ‘the war on the principles of liberty’
ANDY HEDGECOCK recommends a revelatory new history of the Peterloo Massacre
Moments from a massacre: Still from Mike Leigh’s film Peterloo
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
Peterloo
by Robert Poole
(Oxford University Press, £25)
ACADEMIC analysis of Peterloo has been surprisingly scarce, so Robert Poole’s new book is welcome in shedding new light on the events of August 16, 1819, in this bicentenary year of “The English Uprising.”
Revealing a complex set of influences, Robert Poole rejects the notion that the Peterloo massacre occupies a point on a continuum with repression at one end and reform on the other.
He focuses on the impact of national politics, war and issues local to Manchester, such as the city’s finances, leadership and institutions. And he considers the precursor events that informed the strategy of radical movements that frightened the British aristocracy.
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