Saturday, 13 April 2013

Review: Oliver Bullough, The Last Man in Russia

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When I saw this book on the table at Waterstones, I bought it at once: I had read Oliver Bullough's Let Our Fame Be Great ,  an i...
Tuesday, 9 April 2013

Review: Emil Draitser, Agent Dmitri - The Secret History of Russia's Most Daring Spy

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I like Spy books but the first half of this one left me uneasy. I took me some time to work out why but I think the problem is this. ...
Sunday, 17 March 2013

Review:Christopher de Bellaigue, Patriot of Persia - Muhammad Mossadegh and a Very British Coup

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The title is surprisingly misleading: it was an American coup, directed by Kermit "Kim" Roosevelt dispensing an awful lot of...
Monday, 4 March 2013

Review: James Barr, A Line In The Sand

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I am shocked. From the time in 1918 - when they were granted League of Nations mandates to run the former Ottoman Middle East -  until...
Saturday, 23 February 2013

Review: William Dalrymple, Return of a King

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I hesitated over buying this book: Would I really commit to reading 500 pages on the first British Invasion of Afghanistan, way back in...
Monday, 11 February 2013

Review: Trevor Pateman, Language in Mind and Language in Society

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This is a book about Nature and Culture - and about the Mind as the place where both can be found.  It's focussed through a close e...
Saturday, 9 February 2013

Review: Trevor Pateman, Language Truth and Politics

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I wrote this book forty years ago. It was typed and re-typed in a rented thatched cottage in a Devon village: I had a job in a nearby c...