BOOK AND PODCAST REVIEWS - NON-FICTION

The Great Crash of 1929 (1954) John Kenneth Galbraith   Who Runs Britain: And Who's to Blame for the Economic Mess We are In (2008) Robert Peston   J. K. Galbraith produced his short book on the Great Crash of 1929 in late 1954 in an atmosphere that still recalled recent witch hunts over communism (a fact that will help an early twenty-first century reader with some of his more obscure political references). The Penguin edition adds the short Foreword to the 1975 edition that urged 'memory' as a necessary corrective to over-enthusiasm within the financial system. One can only guess what this grand old man of liberal economics would have written in 2008 or, indeed, about the self-inflicted economic mess today (2023). Galbraith's book is not the last word on the subject of the causes and consequences of 1929 - how could it be: it was written over 50 years ago within only 25 years of the events in question and largely from contemporary newspaper reports and ava...

Rubbish! (2005)  Richard Girling Rubbish! is a tirade against the Blair Government but also by extension any British Government since all governments are essentially the same crew whatever the party. Environment policy is seen here through the eyes of a senior specialist journalist whose text ostensibly majors on 'rubbish' but who also covers the degradation of land and water resources, the collusion between government and business at the expense of everything from food security to clean air, and waste itself (especially hazardous waste). There is anger at the incompetence of policy-makers at every level - but largely at those at the top. One chapter is a genuine eye-opener, about the scale of the traffic of Western waste into the developed world. A picture emerges of a pre-credit crunch global economy that trafficked sex slaves and skivvies in one direction and the detritus of growth in the other. It is a shame that the baby of a theory of imperialist exploitation h...