Category Archives: Cultural History
Four Points of the Compass: The Unexpected History of Direction
Where are we?!? Why deep South but far North? Why do some maps orient East or South, but never West? When did direction change from being where things came from to where we were going? Is the North Pole a real place? Who gave the cardinal directions their familiar one-syllable names? (It was Charlemagne – it’s always Charlemagne.) How do we know which way is which? Jerry Brotton’s delightful new book asks and answers such questions on every page. Jerry is a Professor at Queen Mary University in London, so Tim went to compare notes on what it means to be a northerner living in the south. Jerry Brotton – … Continue reading
Posted in Cultural History, History, Philosophy, Politics, Science
Tagged Books, Hiagh, Podcast, science, Tim
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Robin Choudhury – The Beating Heart: The Art and Science of Our Most Vital Organ
What lies within? Every culture places the heart at the centre of personhood. It beats independently of our volition and when it stops we are dead. But if it were no more than a muscular pump it would hardly feature so widely in our visual imagery and iconography. The human heart, Robin Choudhury tells us, has been “…the dwelling place of the soul, the source of life, a furnace or fermentor providing the heat of living bodies, the source of semen and a repository of deeds. It has become the seat of love and desire.” It has fascinated the greatest minds in history and exercised the genius of the finest … Continue reading
Posted in Cultural History, History, Philosophy, Religion, Science
Tagged Books, Heart, Hiagh, Medicine, Podcast, science, Tim
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Death and the Victorians – Adrian Mackinder
The origins of modern death Let’s face it – nobody did death like the Victorians. From Highgate Cemetery to the high drama of seances, from Jack the Ripper to Madame Blavatsky, from Waterloo Station to Brookwood Cemetery (there was an actual train!) the Victorians invented our modern response to death, its iconography and its – yes – romance. The advent of industrialisation and the explosive expansion of the great cities had created an unprecedented problem – too many corpses, with all the squalor and disease that came with them. But alongside the practical requirements of disposal there was an increasingly sentimental attitude to the dear departed. For the Victorians, the … Continue reading
Alwyn Turner – Little Englanders – Britain in the Edwardian Era
End of Empire History sometimes provides us with neat dividing lines. Queen Victoria helpfully died just weeks into the new century, making way for a new era, but the nightmarish Twentieth Century didn’t really get into its stride until the outbreak of the Great War in 1914. Between those landmarks is the Edwardian era. There is apprehension abroad. The nation is anxious about anarchists and terrorists. There is the looming possibility of war. The complacency of the Conservative hegemony is shattered by the Liberal landslide of 1906, not to mention the rise of the Labour Party, and the hangover of the Boer War has raised a question unfamiliar to the … Continue reading
Posted in Cultural History, History, Humour, Politics
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The Dictionary People – The Unsung Heroes Who Created The Oxford English Dictionary
A goldmine of nutters, obsessives, murderers, vicars and, above all, readers! In a time before the internet, the compilation of the Oxford English Dictionary was the Wickipedia of its day, crowdsourcing its contributions from thousands of readers across the world. Over decades, millions of slips inscribed with words and quotations poured into a metal shed in an Oxford garden to be assembled into the magnificent, comprehensive, authoritative dictionary that was a wonder of the age. It is understandable that attention has tended to focus on the principle Editor, James Murray, who devoted thirty-six years to the project (he got it to the letter T), but a chance discovery sent Sarah … Continue reading
Posted in Biography, Cultural History, History
Tagged Dictionary, English, History, Ogilvie, Oxford, Philology, Sarah, Words
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Mike Jay – Psychonauts: Drugs and the Making of the Modern Mind
Don’t knock it ’till you’ve tried it! 😉 We are familiar with some of the names: William Burroughs in the 1950’s. Timothy Leary in the ‘60’s, Hunter S Thompson in the ‘70’s, those two guys who started the craze for smoking cane-toad venom in ‘90’s. Investigators who became their own guinea pigs. But “the heroic tradition of discovery”, as Mike Jay puts it, has a much longer and more interesting history. The second half of the Nineteenth Century in particular saw the introduction of most of the substances discussed in this book, and was perhaps the golden age of getting stoned for science. The problem, of course, is that there … Continue reading
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Cathi Unsworth – Season Of The Witch: The Book Of Goth
Margaret Thatcher and Goth Culture It was the Age of Thatcher, and beyond the playgrounds of the red-braces wide boys and the Sloane Square privileged, it was grim. Unemployment was a weapon in the class war. The Yorkshire Ripper ran riot. Bitter industrial disputes divided communities, while the police was brutally remade into a national instrument to break the miners. And maybe you remember the pop music of the time: Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Madonna, Michael Jackson. Wham! But there was a more intense musical response to the wretchedness of the times, more intense and more appropriate. Punk had come to a sticky end, but it inspired a new generation … Continue reading
Barry Forshaw – Simenon: The Man, The Books, The Films: A 21st Century Guide
Barry Forshaw – Oldcastle Books – £12.99 Is there any man or woman in England who knows more about crime writing than Barry Forshaw? Here at The Books Podcast he is our go-to man. He is also delightful company. Simenon’s Maigret books are the most successful non-anglophone crime series in the world. Easily up there with Sherlock Holmes and Philip Marlowe, but with an entirely different approach to detection. Maigret is closer to psychologist or priest than sleuth. But Simenon regarded his romans dur – hard novels – as his real writing, and Andre Gide said he was the greatest French novelist of his time. Having fairly recently come to … Continue reading
Steve Richards – The Prime Ministers We Never Had: Success And Failure From Butler to Corbyn
Steve Richards – Atlantic Books – £10.99 Steve Richards’ last book was an entertaining and penetrating discussion of the last ten Prime Ministers (or at any rate, the last ten at the time of publication – we’ve had a couple more since then.) But as he writes in his new book, “Most routes to Number 10 are blocked.” But some of the nearly men and women are bigger and more substantial figures than the ones who made it to the top. Why did John Major become Prime Minister when Michael Heseltine did not? Why did Michael Foot lead the Labour party instead of political heavyweights like Denis Healey and Roy … Continue reading
Posted in Biography, Cultural History, Economics, History, Politics
Tagged Prime Minister, Richards, Steve, The
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Joel Meadows – Tripwire 30th Anniversary
Joel Meadows Heavy Metal Entertainment £35.99 Tripwire is thirty, and we were intrigued when this beautiful anniversary book arrived at The Books Podcast. What is Tripwire, you ask? It’s a… well, it’s a magazine. Hm… funny name for a magazine. What sort of magazine? A slightly geeky magazine. Geeky? OK, it’s a magazine for anybody who shares the interests of editor in chief, Joel Meadows, but there again, Joel’s interests are mainstream geek, so that’s alright. And one of his interests is illustrative art, principally comic-book and movie art, and Tripwire is in love with it. And that endears it to me. We visited Joel Meadows to discuss the past … Continue reading
Posted in Cultural History, Fiction
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David Hepworth – Abbey Road: The Inside Story of the World’s Most Famous Recording Studio
David Hepworth – Bantam Press – £25 The world has many holy places – Mecca, the Western Wall in Jerusalem, the Golden Temple at Amritsar, the Wetherspoons on King St in Hammersmith – but for some of us these are all trumped by Number 3 Abbey Rd in St John’s Wood. EMI’s Abbey Road recording studios. Even today musicians and bands – good bands – are sometimes intimidated by the sheer history of the place. To stand where the Beatles stood and sing where the Beatles sang is to feel the shadow of genius. And you might also rate Elgar, Noel Coward and Jacqueline du Pre. Not to mention Bernard … Continue reading
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Louise Willder – Blurb Your Enthusiasm – an A-Z of Literary Persuasion
Louise Willder – OneWorld – £14.99 Quick review of Louise’s checklist of adjectives not to be used in a blurb: breathtaking, spellbinding, dazzling, powerful, beautiful. So I can’t say it’s any of those. Readable? Well, as she points out, it’s a book. Darkly comic. That just means unpleasant, doesn’t it? I also can’t accuse it of ‘mordant wit’. Although it is funny. Very. ‘Rich tapestry’. She’s got a point there – I don’t know what that means. ‘Reminds one of Martin Amis.’ Yes, I think we can definitely shelve that one! Oh – I know. I can crib her quote from Charlie Brooker: “The potential all-time #1 bestseller”. Will that … Continue reading
Posted in Cultural History, Humour
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Nick Wallis – The Great Post Office Scandal: The fight to expose a multimillion pound IT disaster which put innocent people in jail
Nick Wallis – Bath Publishing – £25 It is the biggest miscarriage of justice in British legal history. Hundreds of innocent people prosecuted, ruined, often imprisoned – their lives destroyed. And hundreds more dismissed from their jobs and their livelihoods, obliged to pay thousands and even tens of thousands of pounds “back” that they never stole in the first place. And all of this visited upon their staff by the Post Office – an institution since 1660, and one of the most trusted brands in British life. You were probably aware of the scandal as it emerged into the public arena, and you were probably shocked. But the picture is … Continue reading
Posted in Cultural History, Economics, History, Politics
Tagged Books, Hiagh, Jail, Nick, Podcast, Post Office, postoffice, Scandal, Tim, Wallace
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Prof Francesca Stavrakopoulou – God An Anatomy
Professor Francesca Stavrakopoulou – Picador – £25 “Once upon a time, in the book of Genesis, humans were made in the visual image and likeness of God. It was a social, as well as a corporeal correspondence, celebrating both the fleshly wonders of the human body and the personable presence of the deity.” So says Professor Francesca Stavrakopoulou. She has written a fascinating volume, scholarly and hugely entertaining, exploring the ancient conception of the god of the bible, focussing on his corporeality and presence in his followers’ lives. Professor Stavrakopoulou is, herself, also entertaining and engaging and we have a high old time discussing her book, which illuminates our understanding … Continue reading
Posted in Cultural History, History, Philosophy, Religion, Science
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Nicholas Wapshott – Samuelson Friedman: The Battle Over the Free Market
Nicholas Wapshott – W. w. Norton – £22.95 Not many academic economists are household names. But when I was young, Milton Friedman was. The high-priest of Monetarism and intellectual descendant of Friedrich Hayek, his theories were much admired by right-wing politicians such as Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. Meanwhile Paul Samuelson made his mark with his bestselling economics textbook which was the standard text for decades. I used it myself at school. Nicholas Wapshott has a brilliant eye for the narrative that unlocks the subject for the general reader. In the case of Samuelson and Friedman, Wapshott’s springboard is the column in Newsweek magazine that the two economists shared, or … Continue reading
Posted in Biography, Cultural History, Economics, History, Politics
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Robb Johnson – The People’s Republic of Neverland: The Child Versus The State
Robb Johnson – PM Books – £17.99 https://media.blubrry.com/timhaighreadsbooks/bookspodcast.com/MP3s/green-shoot_robbjohnson-thepeoplesrepublicofneverland_20210811.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Embed
Posted in Cultural History, Politics
Tagged child, children, education, Johnson, Robb, school
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Alwyn Turner – All In It Together: England in the Early 21st Century
Alwyn Turner – Profile Books – £20 https://media.blubrry.com/timhaighreadsbooks/bookspodcast.com/MP3s/green-shoot_alwynturner-allinittogether_20210627.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Embed
Stan Lee – How Marvel Changed The World!
Adrian MacKinder – Pen & Sword White Owl £19.99 $29.99 Face Front, True Believers! This is the story of the man who gave the world the Marvel Universe, who bestrode the comic-book industry like a colossus, and who said “Face Front, True Believers!” a lot.In later life Stan Lee became nearly as famous as his creations, appearing in cameo in a score of the films based on the characters he had created. But for nearly twenty years he laboured in an unprepossessing corner of popular culture, writing comic-books for kids. It was only with the Marvel revolution that comics exploded into the main stream. Spider-man, The Fantastic Four, The Incredible … Continue reading
Posted in Biography, Cultural History, History
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Philip Seargeant – The Art of Political Storytelling
This is the story of one man’s mission to save the world from the forces of evil. To do battle against a corrupt and self-serving enemy bent on enslaving an innocent population. In order to achieve this, he has to venture deep into hostile territory, abandoning the comfortable existence he once had, and embark on a perilous unforgiving journey. At each stage of the journey he’s assailed by fierce and unscrupulous opponents. But, at the moment of utmost crisis, he’s able to realise his true potential. Through self-belief, force of character and complete conviction in his cause he faces down the enemy in one final conflict. In doing so, he … Continue reading
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Philip Norman – Wild Thing: The short, spellbinding life of Jimi Hendrix
Philip Norman – Weidenfeld and Nicolson – £20 It is generally accepted that Jimi Hendrix is the most important guitarist in the history of rock music. In just four years he revolutionised everybody’s idea of what an electric guitar was capable of, set new standards for showmanship, and left a dazzling catalogue of recordings. Poster boy for the 27 Club (rock musicians who died at that age), Hendrix died in London fifty years ago. That anniversary prompted Philip Norman to add to his wonderful series of biographies of the greats. We joined Philip in his garden to talk about what Jimi Hendrix still means to us. http://media.blubrry.com/timhaighreadsbooks/bookspodcast.com/MP3s/green-shoot_philipnorman-jimihendrix_20200925.mp3Podcast: Play in new … Continue reading
Posted in Biography, Cultural History, Music
Tagged Guitar, Hero, Jimi Hendrix, Megastar
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Liz Williams – Miracles of Our Own Making: A History of Paganism
Liz Williams – Reaktion Books – £15.95 In her discussion of Stonehenge, Liz Williams writes: “There is a legend that Merlin simply flew the entire circle from Ireland, which I think we can rule out.” This is typical of her approach. She is not embarrassed by the unprovable, but has a robust attitude to the wilder flights of fancy. Thus, she makes judicious assessments of, for instance, claims that present magic accesses ancient knowledge (weak), and considers what we can actually know about druidic practices (not much for sure), but she does find the roots and traces of pre-christian spirituality in a culture which didn’t take notes. We are on … Continue reading
Posted in Cultural History, History, Humour, Philosophy, Religion, Science
Tagged Aleister, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Club, coven, Crowley, druid, druids, Harry Potter, Hellfire, Liz, Madame Blavatsky, magic, occult, Pagan, Paganism, potions, religion, sourcery, spells, The Golden Dawn, warlock, wika, Williams, Witch, witchcraft, wizad
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Stephen Tow – London, Reign Over Me: How England’s Capital Built Classic Rock
Stephen Tow – Rowman and Littlefield £15.99 To have been young in London in the 1960’s must have been very heaven. At least if you had a yen to see live music in clubs and pubs and a dilapidated hotel on an island in the River Thames. The Rolling Stones, The Who, The Kinks, The Yardbirds, Cream, Pink Floyd… (stop me when it gets dizzying). The city was a musical crucible, taking American jazz and blues, English folk and whimsy, and a host of European influences, and transmuting them into the spun gold of classic rock, with a little help from art colleges and a couple of fellows named Marshall. … Continue reading
Posted in Cultural History, History, Music
Tagged Beatles, Cream, Eel Pie Island, London, Me, Over, Pink Floyd, Rign, Rolling Stones, The Kinks, The Who, The Yardbirds
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Helen Lewis – Difficult Women: A History of Feminism in 11 Fights
Helen Lewis – Jonathan Cape £13.59 Well-behaved women don’t make history, and we need to be a bit grown up about our approach to feminism. That is the starting point of the new book from Helen Lewis. Lewis is a trenchant and thoughtful journalist, and also an amusing and witty contributor to satirical BBC shows. Happily both these sides of her outlook are on display in this entertaining book. By focussing on eleven of the struggles that have got us this far in the quest for an equal society – Divorce, Education, Abortion, Safety and so on – she discusses the history, the current issues, the state of play and … Continue reading
Barry Forshaw – Crime Fiction – A Reader’s Guide
Barry Forshaw – Oldcastle Books £12.99 Barry Forshaw is one of the UK’s leading experts on crime fiction. Writer, commentator, editor, broadcaster and enthusiast, his fingerprints are everywhere. If anybody knows where the bodies are buried, it is he. Why is crime fiction the most popular of all genres? It’s a mystery, an enigma, a puzzle. And every puzzle has a solution. Tim Haigh pounded the mean streets and leant on his informers, he sifted the evidence and demolished the alibis, he kissed the femme fatale and sent the samples to the forensic lab to be… forensicced, and eventually he felt Barry’s collar, hauling him down the nick for a … Continue reading
Steve Richards – The Prime Ministers: Reflections on Leadership from Wilson to May
Steve Richards – Atlantic Books £20 You have to wonder why the office of Prime Minister is so coveted. While many politicians aspire to Number Ten, more or less all the Prime Ministers in this book spent at least some of their time in office in political Hell. And yet they typically cling on to office like grim death, and in some cases never get over its loss. Steve Richards, the most thoughtful and incisive of journalists and commentators, has written a detailed and hugely entertaining study of the nine Prime Ministers of the modern era, from Harold Wilson to Theresa May. Packed with anecdote and analysis, and unashamedly fascinated … Continue reading
Graeme Garrard – How To Think Politically
Professor James Bernard Murphy and Graeme Garrard – Bloomsbury: £10.49 In an overview of the great political thinkers of the ages, comprising thirty of the most trenchant minds in history, you would imagine that there would be room for the Sage of Hounslow. But for some reason Plato, Aquinas, Hobbes and Kant are all preferred to Tim Haigh, who doesn’t rate a chapter to himself. Go figure. “Politics”, wrote Lord Roseberry, “…is an evil-smelling bog.” It is the thesis of this brisk tour d’horizon that on the contrary, ideas matter in political discourse, and the writers pursue this notion with a kind of Plutarch’s lives of great philosophers. Highly readable, … Continue reading
Posted in Cultural History, History, Philosophy, Politics
Tagged Engels, Garrard, Ghandi, Graeme, Hitler, Lenin, Mao, Mao Tze Tung, Marx, Plato, politically, politics, think, thinking
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Mike Isaac – Super Pumped: The Battle For Uber
Mike Isaac – Norton: £19.99 It is not unusual in Silicon Valley for head office to lay on dinner for the employees. The cost is nugatory in these fabulously money-rich tech companies and it encourages people to work past quitting time, and eat before going home. It is typical of Travis Kalanick, founder of Uber, that he gave this practice a twist – he stipulated that dinner would not be served before 8:15 p.m. And that story is about the most benign thing we learn about him in Mike Isaac’s wonderfully lucid account of Kalanick and the business he built in his own monstrous image. Dazzling growth, commitment to excess, … Continue reading
Posted in Biography, Cultural History, Economics
Tagged Android, Apple, Cab, iPhone, Mike Isaac, Taxi, Uber
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Ray Connolly – Sorry, Boys, You Failed The Audition
Ray Connolly – Malignon £7.95 “I’d like to say Thank You on behalf of the group and ourselves and I hope we’ve passed the audition.” John Lennon on the roof of the Apple Building on January 30th 1969 at the end of the last public Beatles performance. It had been the Greatest Show on Earth, but what if it hadn’t happened? What if the Beatles had not passed the vital 1962 audition with George Martin at Parlophone which got them their recording deal? As well as being a friend of the Beatles, Ray Connolly is exactly contemporary with them, and comes from the same part of the world. He has … Continue reading
Posted in Cultural History, Fiction, Humour, Music
Tagged Beatles, George Harrison, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ray Connolly, Ringo Star
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Joel Meadows – Masters Of Comics
We all have our guilty pleasures. Mine include horror films, prog rock and, for the purposes of this interview, comic books. For me it was American super-heroes: Batman and the Fantastic Four and speech balloons screaming, “Mortal, I say thee nay!” and “Not all my power can save me!” But actually, comic books have come a long way since the cheap paper and four-colour separation of my childhood. They are glossier, they are more detailed, much better presented, and much more expensive. Joel Meadows takes a tour of some of the finest and most illustrious practitioners of the art of graphic story-telling, bearding them in their lairs – or ‘studios’ … Continue reading
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Julian Baggini – How The World Thinks
When we use the word ‘philosophy’ what we usually mean is “western philosophy’. But as the philosopher and bestselling author Julian Baggini points out in his new book, western philosophy accounts for only around 20% of the world’s population. Other peoples have other philosophical traditions, and as Dr Baggini argues, the underlying philosophical assumptions inform and shape the ways we think and live, even if we never consider them. Tim is perhaps the ideal reader for this book, insofar as he is fairly parochial in his philosophical outlook, and he found it stimulating to be asked to consider the bigger picture and see how other traditions chime with, contrast with, … Continue reading
Posted in Cultural History, Philosophy, Religion
Tagged Baggini, China, Christian, comparative, Haigh, Islam, Julian, Philosophy, Tim
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Ray Connolly – Being John Lennon
“Many people ask what are Beatles? Why Beatles? We will tell you. It came in a vision – a man appeared on a flaming pie and said unto them ‘From this day on you are Beatles with an ‘A’. Thank you, mister man, they said, thanking him.” So wrote John Lennon, shortly before he became the most famous man on the planet. And that’s all the background you’re getting. Tim is a self-confessed Beatles anorak. Many people have Chekhov’s Revolver on their mantelpiece, but only Tim has Stanislavski’s Sgt Pepper and Dostoevsky’s Rubber Soul as well. And he is only too delighted to delve into the minutiae of John Lennon’s … Continue reading
Posted in Biography, Cultural History, Music
Tagged John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ray Connolly, The Beatles, Yoko Ono
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Tom Kirkham – Pop Life
2016 was a bad year. Globally, it was the year of Brexit and was rounded off with a Trump! It was bad for pop music too: David Bowie had died in January. And then it seemed the heroes were rushing for the exit. Bowie was closely followed by Merle Haggard and Glen Frey (of the Eagles), and later in the year, Lemmy, Sir George Martin, Leonard Cohen, George Michael and a dozen others. And then on April 21st, Prince, died. On the personal level Tom Kirkham was already having a bad year. He was feeling his mental health wobbling. And Tom Idolised Prince. He was devastated. He felt the urgent need to … Continue reading
Posted in Biography, Cultural History, Humour, Music
Tagged bipolar, David Bowie, depression, George Martin, gig, gigs, Lemmy, Leonard Cohen, Mental health, music
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Robert Kuttner – Can Democracy Survive Globalisation?
John Maynard Keynes said, “Above all, let finance be primarily national.” Keynes understood the dangers of unfettered finance, and if he’d had his way the Bretton Woods system of international controls would have been still stronger. In his new book, the distinguished journalist and commentator, Robert Kuttner, writes, “Government needs to explicitly assert its right to prevent global laissez-faire forces from undermining its capacity to devise and broker a decent social compact at home.” Kuttner’s book brilliantly sketches the construction before and after the Second World War of a system in which capitalism was effectively regulated and delivered widespread benefits, at least within the western democracies, and its dismantlement in … Continue reading
Posted in Cultural History, Economics, History, Politics
Tagged Brexit, Democracy, Euarope, Globalisation, Grexit, politics, Trump
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Toby Litt – Wrestliana
When we visit Toby Litt in his office at Birkbeck University of London he tells us that all the books in the building have had to be removed because the Georgian building can’t take the weight. All, it seems, except those in his office, which appears to be single-handedly keeping the faith. This seems right. Toby is very much a man of literature – he teaches creative writing at Birkbeck and he has published thirteen fine novels and collections of stories. But Toby’s new book is not fiction. It is by turns a meditation on his ancestry, the meaning of being a father, an examination of the neglected sport of Cumberland … Continue reading
Posted in Biography, Cultural History, History
Tagged Cumbrland, Litt, Toby, Westmoreland, wrestliania, Wrestling
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Grady Hendrix – Paperbacks From Hell
You might think it eccentric to speak of a golden age of satanic possession, murderous infants, flesh-eating crustaceans and Nazi leprechauns, but for enthusiasts of paperback horror novels, the 70’s and 80’s were the glory days. This was a time of the most lurid nightmares spawned, it seemed, from the very bowels of Hell. This was a time when books were proud to be horror rather than ‘chiller’ or ‘thriller’, and when the word Satan on the cover was a guarantee of sales (even if there was nothing supernatural inside). Grady Hendrix has written a hugely entertaining history and celebration of this splendid time. We talked to Grady via skype from a restaurant kitchen in … Continue reading
Posted in Cultural History, Fiction, History, Humour
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Steve Richards – The Rise of the Outsiders: How Mainstream Politics Lost its Way
Steve Richards has presented a series of half hour broadcasts for the BBC about British prime ministers, which he delivers as live and without a script or even notes. They are brilliantly insightful, and wonderfully fluent. With characteristic modesty, Steve says that any of us might have made these programmes, on the grounds that we all lived through those times. He is wrong. He is among our most distinguished and trenchant political journalists, and I doubt that there are six people in the country who could have made them. His new book considers the most fascinating development of recent politics – the rise of the outsider. A loss of trust and … Continue reading
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Robert Newman – Neuropolis: A Brain Science Survival Guide
Since his Entirely Accurate Encyclopaedia of Evolution, Robert Newman’s entirely iconoclastic re-examination of the evidence has excited readers and listeners with its unashamed linking of the science with wider issues, specifically socio-political ones. In his latest book, Neuropolis – a brain science survival guide, Newman targets a sub-species of pop-neuroscience that he dubs bro-science – a pessimistic, denigrating take on the brain that is based more on macho posing than on research. He sets out to destroy it using proper science. http://media.blubrry.com/timhaighreadsbooks/www.bookspodcast.com/MP3s/green-shoot_thebookspodcast_robertnewman-neuropolis.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Embed
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Philip Norman – Paul McCartney: The Biography
When Philip Norman published “Shout” in 1980, it quickly became and long remained the standard Beatles biography. It was noted at the time that there was a marked preference for Lennon over McCartney in that book and Philip was pretty much tagged anti-McCartney. In the years since then, he has reassessed his attitude and came to the conclusion that he had been unfair. McCartney, he now acknowledges, is colossally talented, nobody’s lightweight and is a better and more interesting man than he had been given credit for. As it happens, Tim didn’t pick up on the bias in “Shout!” because he shared it and, like Philip, has followed a parallel … Continue reading
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Jamie Cawley – Beliefs And The World They Created
It goes without saying that there is a difference in kind between what you “believe” and what I “know to be true”. Whether it is the True Religion (be it Judaism, Christianity or Islam), Dawkinsite scientific certainty or the Demonstrable Facts of realpolitik, we all have our cherished articles of faith, and it can be fighting talk to question the shibboleths. So you might think that Jamie Cawley is a brave man to undertake a panoramic discussion of belief as a recurring phenomenon in human societies. Between the worldwide emergence of polytheism and the contemporary creed of Environmentalism, he makes a brisk and entertaining tour of the high watermarks of belief around … Continue reading
Posted in Cultural History, Economics, History, Politics, Religion
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Mike Jay – High Society: Mind-Altering Drugs in History and Culture
Our noble species has a fraught relationship with intoxicants, narcotics, stimulants and hallucinogens. We crave their mind-altering powers, but once they become woven into the fabric of our cultures, we have to either come to terms with them, or make generally futile attempts to shun them. The range of substances is breathtaking, from the completely natural – peyote, alcohol, tobacco – to the explicitly synthetic – LSD, Ecstasy and the dazzling variety of contemporary designer drugs – but what is most striking is the ubiquity of the human embrace of the possibilities of getting out of our heads. We are a junkie species. Books about drugs are catnip to Tim, … Continue reading
Posted in Cultural History, History, Politics, Religion, Science
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Nicholas Wapshott – The Sphinx – Franklin Roosevelt, the Isolationists, and the Road to World War II
Senator Burton K Wheeler put the question best: If the war in Europe was America’s war, why was she not fighting it? It was the vital question of its day. Should America join the European war or not? There are various approaches to history where wars are concerned. One is military history – who shot whom. Much more interesting is the political intrigue – who came out on top, and how. After the Great War, there was a strong, not to say, dominant strain of isolationism, a huge apprehension of the dangers of getting into another European war. The isolationists were a mixed bunch, comprising principled constitutionalists liberals, and American … Continue reading
Posted in Biography, Cultural History, History, Politics
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Alwyn W turner – The Last Post
No Man’s Land is already littered with books on the Great War, and there will be many more hurled into the fray, but not many of them will be as original as this thoughtful and engaging treatment by the historian Alwyn W Turner. Ostensibly a history of the bugle call that came to symbolise the honour of a military death, it ranges very much more widely, taking in all the main symbols of remembrance (all associated with the First War rather than the Second) and serves also as a history of the development of social attitudes towards the soldier, and of public opinion in locating the significance of war. http://media.blubrry.com/timhaighreadsbooks/www.bookspodcast.com/MP3s/green-shoot_thebookspodcast_alwynturner-thelastpost.mp3Podcast: … Continue reading
George Cooper – Money, Blood and Revolution
Who would you turn to if the discipline of economics was in a crisis and you were looking for a solution: Mr Spock or Captain Kirk? Mr Spock would work through the existing data with methodical rigour and implacable logic, while Captain Kirk would make an intuitive leap in the manner of Copernicus or Darwin, and show us an entirely new way of looking at the problem. In his book, Money, Blood and Revolution, George Cooper contends that what economics needs right now is a Captain Kirk, to provide a paradigm shift by simply taking a different perspective on the existing picture. Tim comes blundering in with all the insight … Continue reading
Posted in Cultural History, Economics
Tagged Blood, Cooper, Economics, George, Money, Revolution
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Humaira Shahid – Devotion and Defiance
Humaira Shahid might have had a gilded life, and no-one would have blamed her. She was born into the privileged classes of Pakistan, enjoyed a happy and liberal childhood, and married well into a newspaper dynasty. The important men in her life adored her and admired her and encouraged her to fulfil herself rather than take the subservient role imposed on many Pakistani women. She became an academic, teaching literature, and that might have been that. But Humaira’s personal life contained a series of heartbreaking tragedies, and as she participated in her husband’s journalistic activities, she gained a first-hand knowledge of dreadful injustice and suffering in Pakistan. Driven by a fiery … Continue reading
Christopher Fowler – Film Freak
There was a time when film publicity consisted of having a poster painted, and sending the posters with the reels of film in the van when they were delivered to the cinemas. And then advertising industry foot-soldiers Christopher Fowler and Jim Sturgeon had an idea. What the movies needed was somebody who did film publicity in a much more imaginative way. They were right. What happened after that is laugh out loud funny, indiscreet and revealing, and treads cheerfully on the feet of silver screen glamour; and it is all weirdly plausible. Whether he is telling the story of his ill-judged first visit to the Cannes Film Festival (everybody’s first … Continue reading
Posted in Biography, Cultural History, History
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Gore Vidal from the archive – Palimpsest
After half a century as a great novelist and America’s finest essayist, in 1995 Gore Vidal got round to writing… well, not an autobiography, but at any rate a memoir. Why a memoir? Gore told Tim that by the age of seventy he found that he figured in hundreds of other people’s memoirs, and that from his point of view they had almost all got it wrong. Whether this was due to self-serving lapses in memory or shameless lying, Gore decided to proffer a few corrections. If this also meant indulging in a spot of high class gossip, that was OK too. He had plenty to gossip about. Vidal had … Continue reading
Posted in Archive, Biography, Cultural History, Politics
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Philip Norman – Mick Jagger
Fifty years a star. Gracefulness incarnate. Irresistable to women. Vain and arrogant, perhaps, but with so much to boast of. But enough about Tim. Mick Jagger is by contrast an accountant. You think you know him. The drugs. Marianne Faithfull and the mars bar. The murder at Altamont. The parsimony. The priapism. The seven children with four different women. The ruthless wresting of control of the Rolling Stones from first Andrew Oldham, then Brian Jones, then Keith Richards. Jagger has lived his life in the public glare, and yet he remains an enigma. He never much liked doing drugs. He was a wonderful friend to both Brian and Keith. He … Continue reading
Posted in Biography, Cultural History, Music
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Alom Shaha – The Young Atheist’s Handbook
Richard Dawkins has said that there is no such thing as a Muslim child, only the child of Muslim parents. Saint Richard’s admirers are wont to characterise the imposition of religious delusions as a variety of child-abuse but not all Atheist writers are that militant. Alom Shaha was brough up in a Muslim community. He is now a physics teacher and a thoughtful and tolerant atheist, who has left the delusions far behind, without giving up any part of his heritage. His new book, The Young Atheist’s Handbook is his account of this journey, and also a meditation on the questions that might exercise others taking the the same road. http://media.blubrry.com/timhaighreadsbooks/www.bookspodcast.com/MP3s/green-shoot_timhaighreadsbooks_alomshaha-youngatheistshandbook.mp3Podcast: … Continue reading
Posted in Biography, Cultural History, Religion
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Alwyn W Turner – Things Can Only Get Bitter
The writer Alwyn Turner has spotted a fascinating statistical anomaly and it is this: the generation to which he belongs has produced significantly fewer front rank politicians than those either side of it. Or indeed any generation within living memory. In fact it would be fair to say that, politically speaking, this is a lost generation. Being a social historian Alwyn was prompted to figure out why, and the answer is his ebook, Things can Only Get Bitter. He identifies the pivotal 1992 general election as the crucial event, and analyses the impact on popular culture of the disgust of a generation which turned instead to comedy, music, movies, and … Continue reading
Posted in Cultural History, History, Politics
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Nicholas Wapshott – Keynes Hayek – The Clash That Defined Modern Economics
Can government action fix a broken economy? Eighty years ago John Maynard Keynes and Friedrich Hayek arrived at diametrically opposed conclusions. Far from being a dry and technical academic argument, it was then and is now the central division within political economy. The story of the row between these men and their followers is explosive and astonishingly bad-tempered. Bring up the subject with any politician or social scientist and they will be aware of this story. But only now has anybody written the book. There’s nothing Tim Loves more than a knock-down, drag out, punch up between intellectual heavyweights, so he met Nicholas Wapshott at his London publishers to talk … Continue reading
Posted in Biography, Cultural History, Economics, History, Politics
Tagged Economics
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Alwyn W Turner – The Man Who Invented The Daleks, The Strange Worlds Of Terry Nation
You may remember Survivors and Blake’s Seven. You may even remember that they were created by Terry Nation. But Terry Nation’s immortality will always be tied up with invention of The Daleks. Alwyn W Turner has written a lively and fascinating account of Terry Nation’s times and career, from his radio days with Ted Ray and Tony Hancock, through the glory years of The Saint, The Avengers and countless others. Tim chased Alwyn through a petrified forest towards a steel-covered city populated by the last few mutant descendants of the human race, while a doomsday bomb ticked its countdown to oblivion, pausing only to chat about why Terry Nation’s television … Continue reading
Posted in Biography, Cultural History
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Steve Richards – Whatever It Takes
When the dust settles we will observe that more books have been written about New Labour than about any other British administration, yes, including Mrs Thatcher’s febrile season in the sun. But let the Peter Mandelsons and the Alistair Campbells and even the Tony Blairs make room: Steve Richards of The Independent has written the most incisive, authoritative and readable account yet of the implausible story of Gordon Brown and new Labour. Tim and Steve discussed Brown’s astonishing longevity at the top of British politics, and his relationship with Tony Blair, and why there is nobody else from that government worth talking about. http://media.blubrry.com/timhaighreadsbooks/www.bookspodcast.com/MP3s/green-shoot_timhaighreadsbooks_steverichards-whateverittakes.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Embed
Posted in Biography, Cultural History, History, Politics
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Alwyn Turner – Crisis, What Crisis – Britain in the 1970s
Britain in the 1970’s is revisited in vivid technicolour by Alwyn Turner in his new book, “Crisis, What Crisis?”. Tim Haigh visited Alwyn at home to discuss the politics, the cultural upheavals, the t.v and the pop music of the 1970’s. Enoch Powell and Tony Benn: Coronation Street and Love Thy Neighbour, feminism and homosexuality, they ranged far and wide, agreeing to differ only on the vexed question of whether Middle Of The Road and Showaddywaddy were more important than Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin. http://media.blubrry.com/timhaighreadsbooks/www.bookspodcast.com/MP3s/green-shoot_timhaighreadsbooks_alwynturner-crisiswhatcrisis.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Embed
Posted in Cultural History, History, Politics
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Lord David Owen – In Sickness And In Power – illness in heads of government during the last 100 years
Tim Haigh visited Lord David Owen, sometimes known as Doctor Death in a previous life, to discuss his new book, “In Sickness And In Power- illness in heads of government during the last 100 years”. While Dr Owen has a reputation for not suffering fools gladly, he nonetheless talked in fascinating and almost indiscreet detail about politicians, some of whom he has known, and considers whether he might have succumbed himself to ‘hubris syndrome’ if he had, as he might have expected, become Prime Minister of Great Britain. http://media.blubrry.com/timhaighreadsbooks/www.bookspodcast.com/MP3s/green-shoot_timhaighreadsbooks_lordoweninsicknessandinpower.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Embed
Posted in Biography, Cultural History, History, Politics
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