STEVE JOHNSON recommends a protest album with a harder edge than many in the genre
Understanding the dialectic that is at work
A valuable tool for comprehending which way the momentum is swinging the pendulum of British politics – and why, writes GAVIN O’TOOLE
NO USE FOR CONSENSUS: Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng
DENNIS BROE finds much to praise in the new South African Netflix series, but wonders why it feels forced to sell out its heroine
CARL DEATH introduces a new book which explores how African science fiction is addressing climate change
In his second round-up, EWAN CAMERON picks excellent solo shows that deal with Scottishness, Englishness and race as highlights
Fiery words from the Bard in Blackpool and Edinburgh, and Evidence Based Punk Rock from The Protest Family
MATTHEW HAWKINS is mesmerised by a performance that dissolves the line between audience and performer
MATTHEW SHARPE recommends the essays of a Renaissance politician that instruct and unnerve after 400 years
The Death of Consensus: 100 Years of British Political Nightmares
by Phil Tinline
Hurst, £20
CONCEALED within the pages of The Death of Consensus is a revelation that invites the reader to think about British political history not in terms of events, but processes.
While the author insists from the outset that “none of this is to suggest that history is somehow circular,” that is precisely what his analysis of the “nightmares” upon which a dominant consensus is constructed implies.
The historical logic Phil Tinline unpicks certainly feels Hegelian and, by making the continuities and ruptures explicit, each period he examines becomes a product of contradictions inherent or implicit in the preceding stage. He has discerned a dialectic.
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Here’s an antidote to the Venezuela election-induced tantrums of Western elites. GAVIN O’TOOLE reviews it
GAVIN O’TOOLE applauds an analysis of culture that explains why political conflicts today are focused more on values and identity than the economy and social questions
