No excuses can hide the criminal actions of a Nazi fellow-traveller in this admirably objective documentary, suggests MARTIN HALL
Trump and the US tradition of despotic presidents
EMMA SHORTIS applauds a history of the US that demonstrates the historical precedents for presidential authoritarianism
Cartoon by Steven Ashman
PAUL DONOVAN relishes a fascinating exploration of the leading lights of the Labour right in the 1970s
BEN LUNN alerts us to the creeping return of philanthropy and private patronage, and suggests alternative paths to explore
A novel by Argentinian Jorge Consiglio, a personal dictionary by Uruguayan Ida Vitale, and poetry by Mexican Homero Aridjis
MIK SABIERS savours the first headline solo show of the stalwart of Brighton’s indie-punk outfit Blood Red Shoes
New releases reviewed by IAN SINCLAIR
STEVEN ANDREW is moved beyond words by a historical account of mining in Britain made from the words of the miners themselves
The Forever War: America’s Unending Conflict with Itself
Nick Bryant, Bloomsbury, £25
IF you select “virtually any date in US history, it would be possible to find the same poisonous ingredients [that] percolated violently to the surface on January 6, 2021,” writes journalist and historian Nick Bryant in his new book, The Forever War: America’s Unending Conflict with Itself.
Donald Trump, and the movement behind him, is both new and old; times are unprecedented but also, to historians of the US, frighteningly familiar. Bryant, a historian by training, meticulously makes sense of these contradictions, methodically unpicking the mythology of US history to clearly argue that Trump — and his support — is the product of that history.
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