JOHN GREEN doubts the motivations of a US war photographer who never questions why, or for whom, she is producing images of imperialist conflict
Empire is without virtue
RON JACOBS recommends an exhaustive demonstration that colonialism is insidious, pervasive, positive and negative
British Royal Marine poses with two severed heads during the Malayan Emergency. This photograph was first published on May 10 1952, by the Daily Worker (Morning Star) in a frontpage article titled "This Horror Must End".
[Public Domain]
MARIA DUARTE reviews Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, Hedda, The Mastermind, and Regretting You
TONY CONWAY welcomes a thrilling and concise history of Hope not Hate, that is also a manual full of tactical advice
PAUL DONOVAN welcomes an inspiring account of living with deafness that has important lessons for the treatment of deaf people in today’s UK
ALEX HALL is disappointed by a superficial investigation of how consumer choice can be influenced, that ignores the fact that most never have such a choice
Empireworld
Sathnam Sanghera, Penguin, £10.99
POET and anti-war priest Daniel Berrigan wrote in his book The Nightmare of God: “We would like to think that the empire is virtuous. Or that it can be made so, converted, so to speak, by a large dose of civic virtue.” He concludes that it is not virtuous nor can it be made so.
I agree with Daniel Berrigan — empire is intrinsically without virtue.
In his newest book titled Empireworld: How British Imperialism Has Shaped the Globe, Sathnam Sanghera considers it at best a mixed bag, with the negatives outweighing the positives.
Similar stories
RON JACOBS welcomes a survey of US punk in the era of Reagan, and sees the necessity for some of the same today
RON JACOBS salutes a magnificent narrative that demonstrates how the war replaced European colonialism with US imperialism and Soviet power
RON JACOBS welcomes the translation into English of an angry cry from the place they call the periphery
RON JACOBS recommends a new collection of essays that examine the presence of fascism in the US and the struggle against it