The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE recommends an impressive impersonation of Bob Dylan
The reactionary basis of identity politics
ALEX HALL is intrigued by a left-wing account of the cleavage between class-based politics and culture-based politics
The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE reviews Here, Vermiglio, William Tell and Wolf Man
New releases from Thorpe and Morrison, Daria Kulesh, and Will Finn and Rosie Calvert
RINA ARYA confronts the brutal operation of Francis Bacon’s approach to portraiture
Emphasising his continuous engagement in labour movement struggles, ALISTAIR FINDLAY salutes John Foster’s contribution as activist, strategist, intellectual and defender of the Morning Star
ANDY MIAH advocates the use of AI to assist people by expanding access to global literature and culture
EWAN KOTZ relishes a veteran Glasgow band that have lost none of their verve for live performance
Not So Black and White: A History of Race from White Supremacy to Identity Politics
Kenan Malik, Hurst, £20
EVENTS have not gone as Kenan Malik would have liked since about the 1960s and definitely not since the late 1980s and the Salman Rushdie affair. As an anti-capitalist activist, journalist, academic and broadcaster, the disarray and ineffectiveness of the left has been a major concern.
The problem has been the disappearance of class-based solidarity in favour of identity-based solidarity, and although he left the left (or perhaps, as he might put it, the left left him) he now explains the intellectual threads which brought the cleavage between class-based politics and culture-based politics.
Today’s “culture wars” are the present tail-end of this phenomenon. This book is a remarkable help in untangling some present threads and themes, although it doesn’t quite give us Ariadne’s thread out of the Labyrinth.
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