ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
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A timely warning from an ominous past
This is a pertinent reminder of what the government is capable of doing to those who popularise a vision that runs counter to a capitalist economy, its wars and its racism, writes ROB JACOBS
BITTER RIFT: Burl Ives (right) was castigated by Pete Seeger (left) for collaborating with Joseph McCarthy
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 Folk Singers and the Bureau: The FBI, the Folk Artists and the Suppression of the Communist Party USA, 1939-1956
by Aaron J Leonard (Repeater Books, £10.99)
MY dad played music a lot when I was a young child. He would come home from work and put an album on his record player, change out of his uniform and drink a beer while he listened.
Usually, his listening fare was show tunes or big band music. On occasion, he would play a Nat King Cole record or something from the Ink Spots. Sometimes, he would put on a record by the folk singer Burl Ives.
On the weekends when my mom was out shopping, he would play Hank Williams, Johnny Cash or some other country and western artist.
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RON JACOBS has some painful memories triggered by Robert McNamara son’s memoir of the fraught relationship he had with his father, a key architect of the US war on Vietnam
