Reviews

Noise is one of the most versatile of afflictions. Each of the three components of noise – pitch, volume and duration – might create only marginal discontent but together they form an unavoidable menace.
It might be said too that noise is highly subjective. Aircraft noise is one thing but there are people who are disturbed by church bells and ticking clocks. Often a vague humming noise is enough to drive many to distraction. Finally, there are people who cannot adjust to the silence of the countryside.

This well-researched book…

In recent years, English-language histories of anarchism have been paying more attention to anarchist thinkers and activists outside the West. These two books are part of that trend.

I don't really think many PN readers are going to fork out for Anarchism and Syndicalism in the Colonial and Postcolonial World, 1870-1940; it's a very expensive academic hardback, but it is a valuable contribution.

The authors document influential anarchist movements in Argentina, Brazil, China, Egypt, Korea, Peru and South…

On paper this book should have a lot to offer PN readers. It begins in 1911 with the introduction of Connie Calloway, a fledgling suffragette, to Will Maitland, a cricketer, and traces their relationship through her increasing involvement in politics and his eventual path to war. This is a fascinating historical period, and a fictional account of a young woman moving from talk to action, whilst drawn to a man who despises her values, should have engaged and involved me.

Unfortunately, it didn't. It is competently written,…

Given the current debates about the legitimacy of the use of drone strikes to eliminate suspected 'terrorists' in Pakistan and 'insurgents' in Afghanistan, this timely book aims to illuminate the story of the land and the people subjected to these Western onslaughts.

However, despite its title, this is not a book about drone strikes or their effects, and its actual contents – a collection of scholarly essays concerning the history, ethnography and anthropology of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region – are more likely to appeal to…

Simon Hall, senior lecturer in American History at the University of Leeds, has written an impressively researched, concise history of the anti-Vietnam War movement. With extensive endnotes and a wide-ranging bibliography, this is a superb introduction for students of the period and those interested in anti-war protest more broadly.

Incredibly, the 4,000 college students who demonstrated in Washington DC in 1962 in support of a conciliatory foreign policy made up, at that point, the largest demonstration in the history of the…

I cannot recommend this book too highly. It is an excellent compilation of all the myths, lies, nationalisms and vanities which have led us into wars past and present.

Swanson, who must be a bit older than his website picture suggests, has been active in the United States peace world for many years. He was at one stage the press secretary during Dennis Kucinich’s presidential campaign in 2004.

The book is self-published and a fund has now been created to enable it to be given free to legislators, journalists and opinion…

Many PN readers will remember these critically acclaimed books, charting events in the final years of the First World War, from when they first appeared in the early 1990s. The first was later made into a film and the third won the Man Booker prize.

The two main characters are the fictional Billy Prior and the non-fictional William Rivers, an army doctor who treated victims of war trauma. In the first book, two of Rivers’ patients are the war poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen.

The nature and horrific effects of…

In this book Rami Zurayk, professor of agriculture at the American University of Beirut, brings to light the intersections of food security, displacement and rural poverty, with the regional and global patterns of state injustice, neoliberalism, corporate control and foreign occupation.

Originally written as a series of posts for his blog (‘Land and People’), the format may challenge the reader at first.

However, what initially feels like a weakness ultimately emerges as a strength, as the short articles slowly weave together…

PN readers may recall that I’m a big fan of Laurie Penny (aka Penny Red). I’m an equally big fan of feminism, so I was keen to read Meat Market, her series of essays on the subject.

Penny is a serious and passionate writer, and there’s a lot to commend in this book. The opening chapter on sexualisation demonstrates how disempowering the supposedly ‘liberating’ raunch culture actually is, and how it serves commercial rather than individual interests.

Similarly, the essay on body image and eating disorders is moving and…

In April 2003 Tom Hurndall, a 22-year-old British peace activist and photojournalist, was shot in the forehead by an Israeli sniper. Wearing bright orange jacket and trousers to identify him as a peace volunteer, and clearly unarmed, he was trying to rescue a Palestinian child pinned down by gunfire in the town of Rafah in the Gaza Strip. He died after nine months in a coma.

The Israeli marksman responsible, Taysir Hayb, convicted of manslaughter, obstruction of justice, incitement to false testimony and improper conduct, served only…

Mohandas Gandhi ‘fostered a death cult’ in which courage, not nonviolence, was the supreme virtue, headed an authoritarian movement in which ‘to doubt Gandhi was to doubt God’, and ‘had a party line, not just on sexual abstinence and vegetarianism, but also on “idle jokes” (opposed), “innocent pleasantries” (perhaps)... and pencils and fountain pens (opposed).’

Moreover, though he denounced both property damage and trespass as ‘pure violence’, he was not a pacifist in the conventionally understood sense of the term, supporting the…

In its 2010 report ‘Building a Political Firewall Against Israel’s Delegitimization’, the Tel Aviv-based Reut Institute speculated that ‘the Jewish world is growing more distant from Israel’ because ‘a growing number of Jews do not have enough historical knowledge’.

In his latest book, Norman Finkelstein argues persuasively that – at least in the case of the US – the reverse is true: namely, that a growing section of the disproportionately liberal US Jewish public (only African-Americans have voted Democratic and self-identified as…

This study charts the success and failure of over 300 nonviolent and violent campaigns – aimed principally at regime change, self-determination/anti-occupation, or secession – between 1900 and 2006.

Overall during this period nonviolent campaigns proved twice as likely to achieve full or partial success as those that resorted to armed insurgency. This was the case regardless of the nature of the regime and its readiness to resort to repression. Moreover, whereas nonviolent campaigns have become increasingly successful in recent…

‘Writing is a lonely business and the theatre is a collaborative art. Adrian was a social animal and a political one. He believed in the power of poetry and theatre to change the world. This was a deeply-held belief, not naive. He knew the limits but he never lo#st the faith. He had a passionate belief in music/theatre, in the use of song. He worked with musicians and composers of all kinds, both classical and popular. He loved working with groups of people.’ – Celia Mitchell, Introduction.

This collection of Adrian Mitchell’s…

Israel’s 45-year occupation of Palestine’s West Bank and Gaza Strip has witnessed its establishment as a ‘legitimate’ player in the global economy and its crippling of Palestinian livelihoods.  These two books explore this process of  ‘normalisation’ and the apartheid nature of the Israeli state.

The first draws its inspiration from Bertrand Russell’s 1966/67 investigation of the Vietnam War, and  contains evidence and testimonies from prominent activists, lawyers and human rights worker#s, based on their own detailed research,…