DAVID RENTON is puzzled by an ambitious attempt to look back on world culture from the future without engaging with or understanding it
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Tendentious arguments for why journalism still matters
MICHAEL STEWART applauds a fun send-up of the substandard Agatha Christie whodunnit
LEO BOIX reviews a novella by Brazilian Ana Paula Maia, and poetry by Peruvian Giancarlo Huapaya, and Chilean Elvira Hernandez
BRENT CUTLER unpicks the cryptic clues of a book within a book within a murder mystery
Reviews of the Neil Charles Quartet, the Freddie Hubbard Quintet, and the Olie Brice Quartet
GLENN BURGESS suggests that, despite his record in Spain, Orwell’s enduring commitment to socialist revolution underpins his late novels
Why Journalism Still Matters
by Michael Schudson
(Polity, £15.99)
MICHAEL SCHUDSON is a professor at the Columbia School for Journalism and his book is very much a reflection of a US-oriented discourse.
He argues that journalism is essential for a functioning democracy — undoubtedly true in principle — and sees “professional” journalists as akin to medical practitioners who take the Hippocratic oath. They are individuals with a higher calling, somehow apart from the general public in pursuing unadorned truth and disavowing their own prejudices in that pursuit.
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JOHN GREEN recommends an Argentinian film classic on re-release - a deliciously cynical tale of swindling and double-cross
JOHN GREEN is fascinated by a very readable account of Britain’s involvement in South America
JOHN GREEN is stirred by an ambitious art project that explores solidarity and the shared memory of occupation
JOHN GREEN applauds an excellent and accessible demonstration that the capitalist economy is the biggest threat to our existence
