This letter to the editor of Solidarity was published in the 27 July 2022 issue of the newspaper. I have not yet read Antony Beevor’s new book on the Russian revolution and civil war so…
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A few weeks ago Russia indicated that it might designate Facebook as an extremist organisation. To block such a thing occurring, Facebook’s parent company, Meta, clarified its position. It had recently changed its rules to…
If you own a smartphone, you’re almost certainly contributing to several big problems in the world. These include a negative environmental impact, the production of mountains of e-waste as perfectly good phones are thrown away,…
The Islamic Republic of Iran is a clerical fascist regime. It is essentially no different from the fascist regimes we know from history – Mussolini’s Italy, Franco’s Spain and most infamously, Hitler’s Germany. It is…
This, the seventh book in the Jackson Lamb series, does not disappoint. I imagine most everyone who reads it has already devoured the previous six books. For us, the return of Lamb and his “slow…
I sent this letter off to the New York Times two weeks ago. They have not published it. But I thought some of you might find it of interest. Thomas Friedman in his column “Trump…
Here is what I think of when I imagine the German invasion of Poland in September 1939: brave Polish cavalrymen with sabres drawn, charging against modern German tanks. Horses versus steel. The problem with that…
In the aftermath of the disappointing results for the Sanders campaign in the primaries following Nevada, supporters of the self-described “democratic socialist” Senator from Vermont have been discussing what happens next. If Sanders chooses to…
This is a seriously creepy book. It takes place sometime in the near future, though we learn very little about it. The narrator gives little away, and often seems to understand even less than we…
“The history of communism in America is bitterly contested terrain,” writes Maurice Isserman on the first page of his 1982 book. Nearly four decades later, it remains bitterly contested. Isserman falls into the category, I…