On the day of the election, MARTIN GOLLAN reflects on the perennial relationship between the far-right and the back-hander
Latest editorial
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]
MARY CONWAY is gripped by the powerful emotional journeys portrayed by the parents of the perpetrator and victims of a mass shooting
LEO BOIX reviews a novel where shadows deceive and mortality looms, and a poetry collection that refuses to dim
ROBIN STYLES welcomes a boundary pushing work of fiction exploring the life and ideas of the godmother of modernism
PAUL DONOVAN recommends an energetic adaptation of Ken Kesey’s novel, that emphasises how psychiatry is a tool in the hands of a racist agenda
ED WAUGH introduces a special event to commemorate the centenary of the 1926 General Strike
Reviews of Charlotte Cornfield, Michael Weston King, and Gun Outfit
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 recommends a book that charts the disparate circumstances that defined the lives of two prominent black Afro-Americans — one a communist, the other an anti-communist
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