Fordlandia: the rise and fall of Henry Ford’s forgotten jungle city by Greg Grandin, Metropolitan Books, New York 2009
This book uncovers the complex history of Henry Ford’s attempt to create a secure source of natural latex in the Brazilian Amazon in the 1920s and ‘30s.  But it also reveals the complex and often contradictory character [...]

Socialist Register 2010 - Morbid Symptoms: Health Under Capitalism (Merlin Press) Ed: Leo Panitch & Colin Leys.
There’s been some excellent work published on the many faults of the Irish health service by campaigning journalists like Sara Burke and Maev-Ann Wren. For those who want to put the debates about Irish healthcare in an international context, [...]

It’s been a busy week for Brian Hanley and Scott Millar, authors of Lost Revolution (reviewed here). The book launch was held on Thursday while on Saturday the Desmond Greaves Summer School had a session entitled: “Remembering 1969: memory and history” at which Brian Hanley and Mick Ryan were speaker and chair respectively.

Patrick Cockburn is the Baghdad correspondent of the Independent and the author of The Occupation:  War, resistance and daily life in Iraq and Muqtada: Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia Revival and the struggle for Iraq. He spoke to Daniel Finn of Irish Left Review about the latest developments in Iraq.
How do you interpret the latest election [...]

Gilbert Achcar lived in Lebanon for many years. He is now Professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London. He is the author of many books analysing politics and society in the Middle East from a Left perspective, including The Clash of Barbarisms, Eastern Cauldron, The 33-Day War and Perilous Power [...]

Last week, in interview with a More 4 journalist, Mark Regev, one of Ehud Olmert’s spokespeople, admitted that Israel knew and had officially recorded the fact that Hamas had not broken the ceasefire between the two regions and, further, that the Israelis were also aware that Hamas had made attempts to prevent other, small groups [...]

“I Will Just Finish This Drink, and then We Will Have the Riot!”
I have been watch with bemused contempt the rubbish rioting of the idiot Greeks over the past few days on the television and shaking my head wisely to myself, saying, “this would not have happened in Plato’s day.” But of course, it would, [...]

She make me proud to be Spanish!
Is our wonderful queen of Spain, Sofia, who has been making a splash this week, and I don’t not mean in the toilet, with all the revelations in the new book presenting her candid, forthright, and right views on all manner of things that esorcise her, such as the [...]

What is different? Si, I have had a shave!!
I espect most of you seeing this photograph up aboves was thinking, “Oh, No, here we go, Manuel is going to jump on the Russell Brand wagon now and make a big kerfuffle about the swearing on the radio and men who look like ladies but talk [...]

Has been a really appalling week for the human race as I espect you have seen. First, last Sunday, Lewis Hamilton win the world car racing championship by coming fifth in Brazil, and now on Tuesday Barack the Obama win the American elections, the first half-black man in history to be president since Father Abraham [...]