MAYER WAKEFIELD has reservations about the direction of a play centered on a DVLA re-training session for three British-Pakistani motorists
Orwell got it wrong
JOHN GREEN recommends an excellent survey of the involvement of the British state, and British volunteers, in the Spanish Civil War
spain
New releases from Steve Knightley, Jupiter & Okwess, Jason Palmer, Lisa Knapp and Gerry Driver, Kin'Gongolo Kiniata, Ingrid Laubrock/Tom Rainey, Dan Sealey, Simin Tande, PAZ
JOHN GREEN relishes photography that unfolds a longstanding and poetic relationship with Leeds
A uncomfortably misogynistic authorial voice that sometimes seems to lack insight troubles FIONA O’CONNOR
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a production that panders – if inadvertently – to Western prejudice against China
JOHN GREEN is fascinated by a history that excavates the enormous role played by agricultural workers in recent times
ALEX HALL recommends a book that places empirical evidence at the heart of understanding racism
Perfidious Albion: Britain and the Spanish Civil War
by Paul Preston
The Clapton Press, £14.99
THIS new collection of essays by Paul Preston, the renowned historian of modern Spain, is very welcome. It is the perfect book for anyone seeking a dispassionate and scholarly introduction to the Spanish Civil War.
Today, right-wing politicians like David Cameron and his ilk again are invoking the spectre of appeasement which characterised Britain’s position on Spanish Civil War and gave Hitler the green light to invade Poland in 1939, but this time around as an argument for continuing to fuel the war in Ukraine by demonising Russia as the new Nazis. Never mind that it was precisely Cameron’s party forerunners who were the historical appeasers of fascism then, hoping to drive Hitler to invade Russia. Plus ça change!
Preston’s collection of essays here are timely in their recalling of that history. The first part focuses on the hypocrisy of British foreign policy towards Spain and which was instrumental in helping Franco defeat the Republic. And it was the Conservative Party, imbued with its hatred and fear of communism and “Russian barbarism” which took the lead then as now.
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JOHN GREEN relishes photography that unfolds a longstanding and poetic relationship with Leeds
Odysseus’s homecoming myth is treated as a factual story, with strong resonances for our contemporary world. This is an implicit anti-war film that has an urgent relevance, writes JOHN GREEN
JOHN GREEN recommends an entertaining, if harsh and instructive, study of bullying, discipline and power dynamics in schools and at work
