Reviews

White Rose was the name of a student group in Munich that was engaged in the production of clandestine publications - leaflets that stated that the Nazi dictatorship were losing the war, and showed that it was totally futile to continue the conflict, especially after the horrific loss of German lives at Stalingrad.

The film concentrates on Sophie Scholl and, to a much lesser extent, her brother Hans, who were both leading figures within White Rose. It covers what happened to the pair of them during just a short period in February…

The first time I saw this film must have been shortly after it was released some 35 years ago. I felt that what was being described within this pseudo-documentary could happen to both me and my mates - really scary!

I remember it as a film which had a greater shock value to me than the more famous Watkins film The War Game, and even after all of these years I still feel that it is a stronger and much more shocking movie. The film is set in the America of the not-too-distant future in which martial law has been imposed. Dissidents…

This little book excites me more than the whole heavy stack that I recently received to review. It is immediate, politically and socially relevant, practical and comprehensive - we need it. Small-scale water power, that is.

The price of petroleum increases as reserves dwindle. Wars and coups are planned and executed to ensure the minority world gets what it considers “our oil”, no matter where it is. And those who complain about polluting coal based energy, also from a non renewal resource, are told the answer is nuclear. In much of…

Devi Prasad's history of War Resisters' International covers the first fifty-plus years of its existence from 1921 to 1973-4.

Based on the records of statements from its Council and Executive and the proceedings and resolutions of its International Triennial Conferences and Study conferences, the book traces its development from an essentially anti-militarist and anti-conscription organisation to one with the broader agenda of promoting nonviolent direct action on a range of issues, though with the anti-militarist commitment still…

This Guide is easy to understand and provides a good introduction to the steadily growing and varied fields of ethical careers. The articles and profiles cover the public and private sectors as well as voluntary work, and advice is given not only on how to get involved in the more obviously ethical careers such as environmental consultants and community workers, but introducing the growing opportunities offered as more and more companies, even “evil multinationals”, create corporate responsibility departments.

Although the cover and…

I stumbled across this book in the early nineties after listening to the track of the same name, on Consolidated's album Friendly Fascism, in which Adams reads passages from her book.

Having lived in a women-only non-meat-eating community, the ideas expressed in this book - linking the objectification of women and non-human animals - were not exactly news, however the uncompromising delivery, the musical collaboration, and the use of historical literature through which to explore the issues were.

Stark messages such as: "Meat…

This is a piece of academic research geared towards producing an internationally acceptable methodology for assessing the effects of the arms trade on sustainable development in developing countries.

Its aim is to persuade all arms exporting countries (mainly in the "first" world) to apply sustainability criteria to all applications for arms export licences. It is not, therefore, against the arms trade per se, but neither does it confine itself to the banning of arms sales to repressive regimes.

The main thrust of its concern…

To us who were around at its beginning, it may be as shock to realise that CND is approaching its 50th birthday in 2008. A new review of its progress and achievements is therefore timely.

Kate Hudson, Chair of CND, took on a daunting task, and it is not surprising that more attention is given to the dramatic developments of the past 25 years than to the earlier ones - though that is no bad thing given the errors and omissions in the earlier history.

Kate does not actually mention, for example, that when a revival of the March…

The back-cover blurb describes this book as "superbly accessible" - a phrase I greet with caution as it usually indicates a subject the publishers don't actually expect their readers to understand.

This time, however, it is the author's background rather than her subject which caused the publicity department to pull out the reassuring language. Alison Hills is a philosophy lecturer, so her book debates the status of animals against a formal framework of moral ethics.

As promised, the arguments for and against granting "rights…

In an effort to prevent the war on Iraq, millions of people around the world took to the streets and demonstrated their own passion for peace. The war still happened. The occupation of Iraq continues. But why couldn't we stop that war? What more could we

Despite the subtitle, this is not “The story of Britain's biggest mass movement”. There are brief inspiring accounts scattered throughout and some wonderful poems and posters, but these are in the margins, drowned in a sea of analysis and national pol

Offering a singular take on recent US/UK strategies in the Middle East, A Letter to the Prime Minister follows international activist Jo Wilding on her remarkable journey of the last few years, in solidarity with the people of Iraq.

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Unbelievably Spanner Films have done the impossible. By putting what should already be a multi-award winning documentary on to DVD, they have made it even better.

McLibel tells the story of how a postman and a gardener

World leaders could benefit from this simple parable set in North India. “The transformation of a terrorist into a Buddha still inspires hope that even the terrorists today - whether stateless murderers on the run or leaders of governments - can face

Suicide in Palestine: Narratives of Despair is the first book to deal with the increase in suicide among ordinary Palestinians living under occupation.

It is not about so-called suicide bombers, although this phenomenon is also examined by way of contrast. This work is about individuals in the general population, and the various circumstances which lead them to become depressed and, in greater numbers than in the past, commit suicide. This is what the author Dr Nadia Dabbagh refers to as the “ripple effects of war”.

Dabbagh…