This may be a bit of a long-winded note but I think it is on an important topic and may have some things of interest for Lobster readers. Because of the nature of the subject it will have to rely, at least in part, on unattributable sources, but I’ll reference it as much as possible. … Read more
Philip Willan Constable, London, 1991, £20.00 Hats off. A British journalist, living in Italy, Willan has produced that synthesis of the Italian material on the “strategy of tension’ and related parapolitical activity which people like me, without Italian or access to the Italian press, have been waiting for. This is one of those books that … Read more
Colin Challen MP First, buy your senator It wasn’t long after their election in 2000 that the business backgrounds of George W. Bush and Richard Cheney became mired in controversy. Cheney’s business career was not as long as Bush’s, but it personifies the role of crony capitalism endemic to U.S. politics. Cheney’s role as Halliburton’s … Read more
Through The Looking Glass: British Foreign Policy In An Age Of Illusions Anthony Verrier (Cape, London 1983) This will probably turn out to be an important book, maybe even a little landmark in the (scanty) literature on British foreign policy since the war. So far it has been largely ignored by the literary/political establishment, receiving … Read more
BAP There was a nice little twist to be observed by followers of the British American Project when Home Office minister Baroness Scotland dashed to Washington this summer seeking to prevent the extradition of the NatWest Three, caught in the long shadow of Enron. The old friend of Tony and Cherie Blair was a young … Read more
John Diamond Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2008, h/b. No price is stated but it’s around $30 on-line. In The Guardian on 4 March 2009 William Dalrymple wrote: ‘Eight years of neocon foreign policies have been a spectacular disaster for American interests in the Islamic world, leading to the advance of Hamas and Hezbollah, the … Read more
Dick Russell Carroll and Graf, New York, 1992 This is one of the most interesting JFK assassination books to have emerged from the movie and 30th anniversary tie-in crop. Given the vast amount of attention paid to Gerald Posner’s ‘Oswald did it after all!’ apologia, Case Closed, it is unfortunate that Russell’s book still hasn’t … Read more
Oliver Kamm London: The Social Affairs Unit, 2005, h/b, £13.99 Kamms’ Anti-totalitarianism was published in the same week and possibly on the same day as the Henry Jackson Society announced itself to the world. So this is a kind of manifesto for that group. (1 ) It’s a nice try, in a way, this … Read more
Jackboots and Sporran: the strange world of Robert Gayre Kevin Koogan in ANARCHY No.38 (Box A 84b Whitechapel High St., London E1 7QX) This is fascinating stuff, the history of some of the more obscure corners in the neo-nazi American/European right-wing since WW2. But it has an odd feel to it, as if it were … Read more
The Money and the Power: The Making of Las Vegas and Its Hold on America 1947-2000 Sally Denton and Roger Morris London: Pimlico, 2002, pb, £15 John Burnes It’s hardly news that Las Vegas was a city run by the Mob. Or that it was fuelled by financial corruption. Or that both of these … Read more
