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...

Secret Agent 666: Aleister Crowley, British Intelligence and the Occult (2008)   Richard B. Spence   Aleister Crowley and the Temptation of Politics (2014) Marco Pasi I n Lobster , the premier journal of para-politics in the UK, I argued that more latitude should be given to historians when dealing with the shadowy world of espionage. I had an interest as someone initially trained as a historian, who had participated in a range of political projects and who often had had to deal with cases of political manipulation damaging the reputation of persons who were clients or friends of mine. The 'truth' about the grey world between official record and unrecorded action is generally handled in one of two ways. Professional historians will rely solely on the records available and refuse to speculate on what might be missing. This might mean that no lies are told but it might also mean that interpretations of events are incomplete or that we see historians unwittingly writ...

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...

The World of Sex (1940)  Henry Miller   Men's Adventure Magazines in Post-War America: The Rich Oberg Collection (2004) Taschen Big Bosoms and Square Jaws: The Biography of Russ Meyer, King of the Sex Film (2005) Jimmy McDonough   Miscellany of Sex (2007) Francesca Twinn   Members Only: The Life and Times of Paul Raymond, Soho's Billionaire King of Burlesque (2010) Paul Willetts     Henry Miller wrote the original draft of his long essay The World of Sex in 1940 when he was about to turn 50, somewhat of a turning point for any redblooded male, but the text was substantially revised for a secondary publication in 1957 when he was nearing 70. This is a relevant set of facts. This is not a male view of sex so much as that of a highly sexualised male past his powers and frustrated at a world that had always failed to accept him publicly for what he was. He would not have been alone in that frustration - America 're-moralised' itself in the wake of the G...