Issue No.
February 2012
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| Welcome to January’s review |
 Tim Black
It is a bit of a paradox. At the same time as anti-
bullying campaigns proliferate - in the workplace, at school and so on - it has become increasingly acceptable, it seems, for officialdom to pick relentlessly on fat people. Yet, as Rob Lyons argues in this month's spiked review of books, the nasty, bullying nature of the obesity obsession should not surprise us: historically the concern with fatness has always rested on aesthetic distaste and outright snobbery. That this distaste for certain people is now dressed up in the language of health should not blind us to the real target: the supposedly overweight and their lifestyles. Also on this week's menu we have James Heartfield on the myths and self-deceptions of the Italian Communist Party, Lexy Barber on the misery of being Jeanette Winterson, Patrick Hayes asking why so many excitedly fantasise about the far right, Nathalie Rothschild on the Obamas, and much more. [Cover illustration by Jan Bowman.] |
| Welcome to December’s review of books |
Tim Black
With the US presidential election looming next year, it’s fair to say that things are not looking good for the current incumbent, Barack Obama. The economy is struggling, unemployment remains high, and Washington seems to be right out of political leadership. Yet, as Sean Collins argues in this month’s spiked review of books, critics of the flailing Obama administration are offering little in return. Too often, he notes, rather than seriously confront the profound political and economic crisis in which we find ourselves, critics - be they trendy Occupiers or gossip-seeking journalists - opt instead for cheap conspiracy-mongering and shallow anti-banker prejudice. This is getting us nowhere fast. We also have Jennie Bristow enjoying Susan Jacoby’s myth-exploding take on contemporary old age; Dr Michael Fitzpatrick in conversation with James Le Fanu, the one-time scourge of the medical establishment; Neil Davenport on pop culture’s retromania; Daniel Ben-Ami on lies, damned lies and social-inequality statistics; and much more. [Cover illustration by Jan Bowman.] |
| Welcome to November’s review |
Tim Black
Liberalism today can often seem more than a little deficient in the freedom department. At home, the self-avowedly liberal - whether in government or in the broadsheet comment pages - consistently treat the rest of us as if we can’t be trusted to choose to eat or drink or indeed speak as we see fit. Abroad, bomb-happy liberal interventionists too often deem whole peoples to be incapable of deciding their own futures. But as I discover in this issue of the spiked review of books, the liberal double standard - in which a club of the free arrogate to themselves the liberty they deny to others - has a long and decidedly ignominious history. Elsewhere, James Heartfield finds that even those critical of the British Empire can be too easily seduced by a more insidious moral imperialism, Neil Davenport salutes the passing of Salford’s finest, Shelagh Delaney, Daniel Ben-Ami explains why economic growth is still good for us and Patrick Hayes looks at today’s prohibitionists. [Cover illustration by Jan Bowman.] |
| Welcome to October’s review of books |
Tim Black
At a time when the world is about to welcome its seven-billionth inhabitant, it might seem odd that the eighteenth-century pastor, Thomas Malthus, has been enjoying an intellectual revival recently. This, remember, was the man who famously expected nature to impose limits on population growth - at a time when the global population was not even one billion. Yet Malthus has indeed become the go-to guy for any number of contemporary miserabilists. Be they environmentalist, anti-capitalist or just plain old racist, Malthus is there with his ready-made theory on the natural limits to growth, whether economic or demographic. This is why this month I go back to Malthus’s founding screed, An Essay on the Principle of Population, to look at precisely what drove that most pessimistic of thinkers - and it was not population stats. Similarly, Rob Lyons finds a book willing to challenge the too-many-people critique of contemporary urban life. And we re-publish Jennie Bristow’s 2005 article on that dig-in-the-ribs to motherhood, We Need To Talk About Kevin. We also have Alex Standish on the educational failure of US universities, Nathalie Rothschild on the woman whose cells revolutionised science, and more. Enjoy!
Tim Black is editor of the spiked review of books. [Cover illustration by Jan Bowman.] |
| Welcome to Sept’s review of books |
Tim Black
It seems strange to talk about a 'crisis of tolerance', as Frank Furedi does in this issue of the spiked review of books, at a time when the elite bangs on endlessly about the importance of tolerance. From schools to the workplace to the political sphere, there is no end to people calling for us to be tolerant of others. Yet as Furedi argues, this is a very warped, watered-down idea of tolerance. It is really a call not to judge others, not to criticise or analyse their lifestyle choices, which is a million miles from the Enlightenment ideal of tolerance. In its original incarnation, tolerance was about enlightening and enlivening the public sphere, through allowing an open battle of ideas between all belief systems. Today's so-called 'tolerance' does the opposite, argues Furedi, by discouraging judgmentalism and critical engagement in favour of a shoulder-shrugging acceptance of everything as being 'equally valid'. Also this month, Rob Lyons explains why he wrote Panic on a Plate, Nathalie Rothschild says Sarah Palin's critics are far creepier than Palin herself, Patrick Hayes picks apart Julian Assange, and Tim Black stands up for the ideal of the university. Enjoy! [Cover illustration by Jan Bowman.] |
| Welcome to August’s review of books |
Tim Black
Once upon a time, those who wore the badge marked 'progressive' generally believed that liberating people from economic need should be mankind's top priority. In a world of plenty, not only would people be able to meet their needs, they'd also be freer to pursue their desires. Less fretting about how to make ends meet means more free time to chase after the finer things in life. Progressives might have disagreed over how to create a world of plenty, but they generally agreed that it was a noble aim. Not anymore. Today, people who claim to be 'progressive' say we can't possibly have more development or 'stuff' because it will harm Mother Earth and deplete her apparently scarce resources. As I argue in this month's spiked review of books, these arguments amount to a PC-sounding assault on the historic goals of equality and freedom. We also have Raymond Tallis explaining why he has launched a war of words against 'neuromania', Rob Lyons on why neither the state nor the market alone can be trusted to innovate, Tim Black on why Marcus Brigstocke is the unfunniest arse in the universe, and much more. Enjoy! [Cover illustration by Jan Bowman.] |
| Welcome to July’s review of books |
Tim Black
Once it was largely only those blue-rinsed and ruddy-cheeked conservatives who shouted: 'I blame the parents!' They blamed mums and dads for pretty much everything, from anti-social behaviour to educational failure. Yet those old-style parent-bashers have nothing on today's supposedly radical and edgy authors and activists who have added some spit and polish to the 'I blame the parents' approach and turned it into a literary industry. They have declared a war of words on the baby boomers, branding them 'The Worst Generation'. This month, Frank Furedi takes them to task, challenging the idea that the boomers are responsible for all sorts of modern mayhem. Yet in some ways the boomers brought this on themselves, he argues, by denigrating the institution of adult authority. Also this month, I ask 'What is the point of Ed Miliband?', Nathalie Rothschild looks into nanny statism in Sweden, Ben Pile finds Mark Lynas's turn away from radical environmentalism interesting but unconvincing, and Fifi Adelsmythe sings the praises of Caitlin Moran. Enjoy! [Cover illustration by Jan Bowman.] |
| Welcome to June’s review of books |
Tim Black
In both political debates about higher education and the streetfighting of angry students, one issue is notable by its absence: the question of what the academy is for. Indeed, the great irony of the stand-off between the Lib-Con government and its anarchistic critics is that both sides accept that HE is merely a route towards a better job. Politicians argue that because the student will benefit career-wise from HE, it is only right that he should pay for it… while student protesters argue that it’s precisely because they will later make big contributions to the economy that they shouldn’t have to pay for it. At root, both sides reduce higher education to a mere instrument of the economy. In this month’s spiked review of books, HE expert Alison Wolf challenges such instrumentalisation, and asks: whatever happened to the pursuit of knowledge? We also have essays on chavs, on 'animal morality', on the rise and fall of the BNP, and much more. Enjoy! [Cover illustration by Jan Bowman.] |
| Welcome to April’s review of books |
Tim Black
You can’t open a newspaper or browse the shelf of a bookshop these days without encountering the word ‘neo-liberalism’. In an irony that would have put a grin on Hayek’s face, attacking ‘neo-liberalism’ has become a rather big business, with the emergence of money-raking, bestselling tomes telling us that bankers are evil and we live in an ‘Age of Greed’. But what is ‘neo-liberalism’, asks Daniel Ben-Ami in this month’s spiked review of books? He finds the term wanting indeed, and argues that those who use it - the radicals who frequently lay in to free-market fundamentalism - are actually Malthusians in disguise with very low horizons for humanity. We also have Neil Davenport on why a 60-year-old novel about Nazi Germany is rattling Europe’s contemporary cultural elite; Patrick Hayes on the latest wheeze for restricting migrants’ freedom of movement; Nathalie Rothschild on how the Oslo Peace Accords made Palestinians’ lives even harder; and much more. Enjoy! [Cover illustration by Jan Bowman.] |
| Welcome to March’s review of books |
Tim Black
Enlighten- ment values are suffering a double-whammy attack today. On one side, there are those who argue that reason is overrated and that human beings are not as rational as we once thought. These ‘nudgers’ believe the best way to remake people (in their image of course) is to manipulate our apparently putty-like minds. On the other side, the self-defined defenders of the Enlightenment reduce reason to a kind of pseudo-rationalism, little more than evidence or ‘The Science’, which ironically they then treat almost as a religious text that we all must adhere to – a very anti-Enlightenment idea. In this month’s spiked review of books, Sean Collins takes both sides to task in his review of David Brooks’ The Social Animal. We also have Nathalie Rothschild on the Stieg Larsson industry and the behind-the-scenes fights between the late Larsson’s partner and family; Jennie Bristow on the weird continued existence of women’s domestic drudgery; Rob Lyons on why nuclear is good; Tim Black on the rise of niche consumerism; and much more. Enjoy! [Cover illustration by Jan Bowman.] |
| Welcome to February’s review of books |
Tim Black
As Julian Assange looks set to be extradited to Sweden to face sexual assault charges, many commentators cling to the tale that he's a warrior for truth being punished by an angry American Empire for daring to reveal its secrets. In fact, as I argue in this issue of the spiked review of books, the Wikileaks story is not nearly so clear-cut or thrilling. It's presented to us as Dan Brown meets The Wire, with brave journos and spectral whizzkids taking on wicked Washington, but in truth this is a story of an incompetent American elite losing its secrets, immature leakers lapping them up, and desperate, mission-seeking journalists publishing them. Principled and profound it ain't. Also this month we have Dr Michael Fitzpatrick on the new breed of anti-vaccine agitator, Nancy McDermott on why and how The Feminine Mystique changed the course of history, Tim Black on whether the web makes us dumb, and much more! Enjoy. [Cover illustration by Jan Bowman.] |
| Welcome to January’s review of books |
Tim Black
This first spiked review of books of 2011 brings you Brighton hoodlums, tiger mums and chimp huggers. Kicking off, Mick Hume argues that Graham Greene’s 1938 noir classic Brighton Rock doesn’t need to be updated, as per the new film version which lifts the story out of the gangsterish 1930s and dumps it in the Mods-vs-Rockers Brighton of 1964. Brighton Rock’s anti-hero Pinkie has universal traits, of course, says Hume - but he also belongs in the Thirties rather than the Sixties, in that pre-teenager era of a world split between men and boys. We also have Nancy McDermott explaining the origins and logic of the ‘tiger mum’ phenomenon. These mums are making up for what society no longer does in any serious fashion, she says - that is, push and test and socialise our children. Meanwhile, Helene Guldberg challenges the ‘chimp huggers’ who claim that great apes are ‘nearly human’. And there’s much more besides, including why we get fat, what freedom really means, and how to resurrect ‘the public’. Enjoy! [Cover illustration by Jan Bowman.] |
| Welcome to December’s review of books |
Tim Black
Everyone claims to be in favour of tolerance these days. It would take a brave man or woman to champion intolerance and to call explicitly for certain creeds and outlooks to be elbowed out of public life. Yet when people use the t-word, they mean something quite different to the Enlightened virtue of tolerance as defined and defended by thinkers from Locke to Mill. They mean recognising and respecting cultural differences - a jettisoning of critical judgement that is a million miles from the ideas outlined in a tract like Locke's Letter Concerning Toleration. In this month's spiked review of books, Frank Furedi, author of the forthcoming On Tolerance: A Defence of Moral Independence, says it is time we rediscovered the true meaning and import of tolerance. We also have Josie Appleton on Britain’s ‘bad laws’, Nancy McDermott on fetal-origins research, Tiffany Jenkins on museums that hide their mummies, Tim Black on Modernism, and much more. Enjoy! [Cover illustration by Jan Bowman.] |
| Introducing the November review of books |
Tim Black
When Anthony Burgess wrote The Wanting Seed in 1962, imagining a world in which infertile gays were celebrated as morally superior to baby-making straights, he probably didn’t believe that such a sentiment would ever really take hold. Yet today, as I argue in my piece in this month’s review, some of the creepy ideas of the dystopian novels of the twentieth century, including Burgess’s, are coming to a kind of fruition. Such is the Malthusian bent to our era that elements of the fertile-hating worlds created by keen-eyed twentieth-century authors can be glimpsed in contemporary society. Also this month we have Sean Collins on Jonathan Franzen, not so much the Great American Novelist as the Great American Malthusian. Rob Lyons investigates the myth that eating meat is bad for the environment, Nathalie Rothschild explores the importance of fonts, James Woudhuysen remembers Churchill’s starvation of India, and there is much more too. Enjoy! [Cover illustration by Jan Bowman.] |
| Welcome to Sept’s review of books |
Tim Black
It’s not often that a lowbrow novel sends shockwaves through the opinion-forming classes, yet that is precisely what Christos Tsiolkas’s The Slap has done. In this month’s spiked review of books, Jennie Bristow says the novel might not be good literature but it is a great read, and shines a light on everything from intergenerational breakdown to the pieties of multiculturalism. We also have the Case Against Geoffrey Robertson, challenging the QC’s 10-year war on the institution of sovereignty and the impact it has had on international affairs. Nathalie Rothschild wonders if Sarah Silverman is really as fearless as she makes out; Angus Kennedy explains why Socrates, whatever his attitude to democracy, is still worth studying; Rob Lyons chews up and spits out many of the myths surrounding food production; and there’s much more besides. Enjoy! [Cover illustration by Jan Bowman.] |
| Welcome to August’s review of books |
Tim Black
From the severe restrictions on experi-menting on primates to the demand that they be granted human rights, the fashion for treating apes as people-like is spreading. Ape and man share DNA and both use tools and live in groups - so we must be similar, right? In fact, argues Tim Black in his review of Helene Guldberg’s new book Just Another Ape?, there is a chasm separating mankind from the entire animal kingdom. The trend for lumping man with monkeys, as if we are all on a comparative scale of tool-use and lingo-skills, really springs from contemporary disdain for the idea that humanity is special and unique. Also this month we have Mick Hume arguing that sporting talent is not innate but developed through training, sweat and tears. James Woudhuysen explores why liberals love to hate the ‘filth’ of modern China. Francis Phillips solves the riddle of who wrote Shakespeare’s plays (it was Shakespeare). Emily Hill finds Lord Mandelson’s tragedy laughable. And there’s much more besides. Enjoy. [Cover illustration by Jan Bowman.] |
| Welcome to July’s review of books |
Tim Black
Today, lots of people and campaign groups are agitated by the tsunami of incursions into our private lives, but they lack an overarching manifesto defending privacy. That could soon change, argues Josie Appleton in this month’s spiked review of books, where she describes Wolfgang Sofsky’s Privacy: A Manifesto as one of the finest modern defences of freedom and autonomy. Exploring how the undermining of our privacy is not simply an external imposition but something we sometimes implicitly invite - with revelation being the flipside of surveillance - Appleton says it is time we launched a serious defence of the all-important unpoliced space. Also this month, we have Neil Davenport on why some people are getting misty-eyed for the GDR, Tim Black on the erosion of the Enlightenment by its so-called defenders, Daniel Ben-Ami on why banker-bashing doesn’t help us understand the recession, and more. Enjoy! [Cover illustration by Jan Bowman.] |
| Welcome to June’s review of books |
Tim Black
There was a time when being left-wing and progressive meant demanding more. More production, more wealth, more stuff. Today it has been redefined to mean demanding less and being more interested in ‘protecting the planet’ and making people happy (with your own narrow definition of what happiness means). In this issue of the spiked review of books, we challenge this outlook. Sean Collins, in his review of Daniel Ben-Ami’s new book Ferraris for All, says more really is more and explains how growth has improved our lives and can continue to do so. I challenge the shallow socialism of hating Ryanair and argue that being ‘anti-capitalist’ today means being anti-development. And Rob Lyons reviews The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley, who comes at this issue from the right, and finds the book's positive approach to the future to be a breath of fresh air in today’s smog of misanthropy. We also have Tim Black on fecund fundamentalism, Nathalie Rothschild on aid, Guy Rundle on Hitchens, and more. Enjoy!
[Cover illustration by Jan Bowman.] |
| Welcome to May’s Review of Books |
Tim Black
There was a time when being radical meant demanding more. Radical critics argued that society wasn’t producing enough material wealth and stuff to satisfy mankind’s needs. On the other side of the moral barricades, conservatives, by contrast, emphasised restraint. They used various dubious moralistic arguments about sin and greed and gluttony to try to make people accommodate to their lot in life. How times have changed. Today, as Daniel Ben-Ami demonstrates in this issue of the spiked review of books, those calling for restraint now fancy themselves as ‘radicals’, while those who want more, more, more are written off as ‘conservative’, even as destructive. Ben-Ami puts the case for greater economic growth as a way of pushing forward human progress itself. Also this month we have Ann Furedi on Philip Pullman’s Jesus, Rob Lyons on the myth of junk-food addiction, Tim Black on greens’ Biblical fears, and much more. Enjoy! [Cover illustration by Jan Bowman.] |
| Welcome to March’s review of books |
Tim Black
A green-tinged Malthusian- ism is on the march. These days everyone from royals to republicans, feminists to fascists (of the British National Party variety) seems to think the planet is overpopulated. In response to this rebirth of Malthus, some environmentalists have started to challenge the idea that population levels are wrecking the planet, and claim that in fact human consumption is the key destructive ingredient. Yet as I argue in this issue of the spiked review of books, these anti-Malthus greens are really only interested in distancing themselves from the reactionary, population-curbing movements of the past and actually want to rehabilitate Malthusian thought in a more palatable, PC way. We also have a striking debate on Darwin, with John Gillott challenging the arguments of What Darwin Got Wrong while one of the authors of that book, Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, says it is now blasphemy to criticise Darwin. Plus Angus Kennedy on evil, Charlotte Faircloth on French mothers, James Heartfield on Solar, and much more. Enjoy! [Cover illustration by Jan Bowman.] |
| Welcome to February’s review of books |
Tim Black
‘Blame it on the boogie’, sang the late Michael Jackson. Today the cri de coeur is ‘blame it on the boomers’. The baby boomers, those Westerners born in the baby boom that followed the Second World War and who mainly grew up in a time of free education, increased liberalism and no absolute poverty, are today blamed for all sorts of social and economic ills. Their social experimentation caused family breakdown, apparently. Their pursuit of plenty sucked up many of the planet’s precious resources, we’re told. Their consumerist lust brought about the financial crisis, and so on. In reality, says Frank Furedi in this issue of the spiked review of books, the boomers were creative producers rather than mere consumers, and their demonisation today springs from a depletionist view of history and the neo-Malthusian idea that resources are finite. It’s time to give the boomers a break. We also have Philip Hammond on the truth about Darfur, Emily Hill on Martin Amis the pub bore, Rob Lyons on a green-leaning critic of environmentalism, and much more. Enjoy! [Cover illustration by Jan Bowman.] |
| Welcome to January’s review of books |
Tim Black
Throughout history, human societies have dreamt of creating plenty, from the toiling Israelites’ vision of ‘a land of milk and honey’ to the Socialist Sylvia Pankhurst’s call for a ‘great production that will supply more than all the people can consume’. Mankind has aimed for abundance, both in order to satisfy people’s needs and to give us more free, non-drudgery-related time in which to think, experiment, or relax. Yet today, numerous underhand arguments are put forward to undermine the idea of economic growth: it’s bad for the environment, we’re told, or it will leave us unhappy. In this month’s spiked review of books, Daniel Ben-Ami, author of the forthcoming Ferraris for All: In Defence of Economic Progress, kicks off his campaign to defend growth as a good – and essential – thing. We also have Sean Collins on the expletive-laden gossip from the 2008 US presidential race, Tim Black on the disappearance of civil liberty, Rob Lyons on the history of food and humanity, Thomas McGlaughin Jr on JD Salinger, and much more. Enjoy! [Cover illustration by Jan Bowman.] |
| Welcome to December’s review |
Tim Black
In this issue of the spiked review of books, the last of 2009, we have Mick Hume on Philip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler’s fictional detective and flawed ‘man of honour’. We need the likes of Marlowe more than ever, argues Hume, to put our morally mixed-up world to rights. We also have Sean Collins on an insightful new expose of the panic and near hysteria that defined the reaction of America’s political and economic leaders to the recession. Jennie Bristow reviews a provocative new book that explores how official suspicion of adults and the modern-day mantra that ‘children never lie’ has created a minefield of abuse accusations in British schools. Rob Lyons revisits his hometown of Birmingham, through a new picture book on the Second City, and finds that it is not such a soulless place after all. We also have Nathalie Rothschild on Philip Roth, me on the demise of EastEnders, Michael Cook on Scrooge the Malthusian, and more. Enjoy! (spiked is away until 4 January. Happy new year.) |
| Welcome to November’s Review |
Tim Black
The UN climate change conference, which takes place in December in Copenhagen, has been hysterically described as ‘mankind’s last chance to save the world’. In this month’s spiked review of books, Josie Appleton examines one of the measures most frequently put forward for ‘saving the world’ – the creation of a global carbon market – and finds that it actually threatens to make the world a madder place, rewarding economic downturn, paying the Third World not to develop, and instituting a vast green bureaucracy. Also this month, Dolan Cummings finds that, behind her anti-worker bluster, Ayn Rand had some quite inspiring stuff to say about the creativity of industry, which stands in stark contrast to today’s view of industrial innovation as exploitation of the environment. Tim Black asks if reading one of Heidegger’s works will really turn you into a card-carrying Nazi, and Guy Rundle asks if Žižek has any solutions to the current economic and political crisis beyond playing the clown of communist-leaning academia. And there’s much more, too... Enjoy! [Cover illustration by Jan Bowman.] |
| Welcome to October’s review of books |
Tim Black
At a time when those people formally known, and often feared, as ‘headmasters’ have been relabelled ‘lead learners’, and when schoolchildren are encouraged to interview their own teachers to see if they have the right attitude and skills, it is clear that education is being turned on its head. Formerly the arena in which adults passed on their knowledge to children, it is now more like a conversation between ‘equals’ about values and behaviour. In an interview about his new book Wasted: Why Education Isn’t Educating, Frank Furedi tells this month’s spiked review of books that the engine to the education crisis is the demise of adult authority. In a world where adults’ wisdom and moral fitness are continually called into question, education becomes a near-impossible task. We also have Sean Collins on the economic relationship between America and China, Dr Michael Fitzpatrick on the McCarthyism of anti-smoking, Tim Black on capitalism’s ‘morbid age’, and much more. Enjoy! [Cover illustration by Jan Bowman.] |
| Welcome to Sept’s review of books |
Tim Black
Once upon a time, the family was seen by many as a haven in a heartless world, an 'institution' that was largely separate from public life and where adults were trusted to care for and nurture the next generation. Not anymore. Today, the family is seen as potentially the most heartless part of society, where neglect, stupidity or simply bad parenting on the part of mums and dads is turning out a new generation of screwed-up individuals. As Ann Furedi argues in this month's spiked review of books, the family is no longer 'other' than public life, but rather has become the site of massive state intervention and social engineering to ensure that parents do their jobs correctly. Is it time to launch a Parents' Liberation Movement? We also have Michael Fitzpatrick denouncing the trend to accuse anyone who questions scientific evidence of being a 'denier', Sean Collins on why Keynes is not the answer to the recession, Philip Hammond on the 'global ideology', Nathalie Rothschild on the Bluestockings, and much more. Enjoy! [Cover illustration by Jan Bowman.] |
| Welcome to July’s Review of Books |
Tim Black
This month’s spiked review of books is devoted to the question of human-centred morality, or rather the lack of it today. Susan Neiman, author of Moral Clarity: A Guide for Grown-Up Idealists, tells us that philosophy, for too long a haughty and overly abstract academic pursuit, must rediscover its purpose of ‘enlarging a sense of what is possible in the world’. Jennie Bristow is impressed by a book published on the one-hundredth birthday of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation which, while not providing all of the answers to today’s moral malaise, at least asks the right questions about the role of individuation and therapy culture in shrinking the sense of human possibilities. Dolan Cummings, meanwhile, offers a defence of a man now seen as an outdated and severe moralist yet whose thinking helped to shape the modern world: John Calvin. We also have Sean Collins on A-Rod, Daniel Ben-Ami on anti-consumerist overload, Rob Lyons on scepticism, and much more. Enjoy! [Cover illustration by Jan Bowman.] |
| Welcome to June’s review of books |
Tim Black
Who really carried out 9/11? Who killed Princess Diana? Did Israeli lobbyists coax Bush’s neocon cabal to destroy large parts of the Middle East? These conspiracy-theory questions are frequently mocked by mainstream commentators, who look down on the ignorant cliques that spread warped stories about the world. Yet as Frank Furedi argues in this issue of the spiked review of books, at the same time many commentators buy into conspiratorial thinking - the idea that there is some hidden and ‘real’ agenda behind every headline and every politician’s utterance. Furedi calls for less simplistic ridicule of cranky conspiracy theories and more vision about how public debate might be humanised. Also this month we have Jennie Bristow on a self-confessed bad mother, Philip Hammond on what al-Qaeda has in common with environmentalism, Neil Davenport on China’s factory girls, Nathalie Rothschild on why travelling the world won’t save the world, and much more. Enjoy! [Cover illustration: Jan Bowman.] |
| Welcome to May’s review of books |
Tim Black
This month we celebrate the second birthday of the spiked review of books. When spiked launched its monthly review in May 2007, we said it would be an arena in which writers could ‘take the pulse of our times and launch salvos in the battle of ideas’. ‘No books will be burnt, though the debate will get heated’, we promised. We hope we have kept our promise. In keeping with the review’s mission to dig deep into the issues of our day and put the case for free and very critical thinking, this month we have part two of Sean Collins’ essay on the 1930s, in which he challenges the conventional wisdom that the New Deal saved America. We also have Tim Black standing up for human ambition against John Gray’s wild-eyed misanthropy, Michael Fitzpatrick on why Engels was more than Marx’s sidekick, Rob Lyons on the politics of disease, Emily Hill on what’s really wrong with celebrity culture, and much more. Enjoy! [Cover illustration by Jan Bowman.] |
| Welcome to April’s review of books |
Tim Black
In our era of global recession, everyone has started to look back to the 1930s. For some, mulling over the Great Depression is an exercise in ‘pessimism porn’: they’ve convinced themselves we are heading for the same dire poverty and hunger that many in the West experienced during that dark era. For others, it’s a search for cut-and-paste solutions from the past. Keynesian-style policies worked back then, they allege, so why not today? Rising above these lazy readings of the 1930s experience, Sean Collins’ important two-part essay – which kicks off this month – puts the case for properly analysing what caused the Great Depression, and what is similar and different today, and for going beyond the search for simple explanations to explore the deeper structural problems of the capitalist system. Also this month, we have Kenan Malik on the fatwa and free speech, Jennie Bristow on ‘Cyburbia’, Rob Lyons on the problem with Gaia, and much more. Enjoy! [Cover illustration by Jan Bowman.] |
| Welcome to March’s review of books |
Tim Black
This month, the 25th anniversary of the British miners’ strike passed without much serious comment, save for some familiar bickering amongst left-wing writers about who was to blame for its defeat and surreal claims by right-wing commentators that it wasn’t really a ‘national clash’ since it only involved ‘troublemakers’. In this issue of the spiked review of books, Mick Hume puts the strike in its proper historical context, describing it as a civil war between the forces of the state and the working classes which divided Britain. That 1984-85 defeat of the labour movement – which occurred not for the want of heroism and stamina on the part of striking miners – went on to shape modern British politics and economics, argues Hume. We also have Dwain Chambers on the snobby sporting elite, Jennie Bristow on the truth about the therapy culture, Nathalie Rothschild on self-discovery in the Middle East, and much more. Enjoy! [Cover illustration by Jan Bowman.] |
| Welcome to February’s review of books |
Tim Black
In this issue of the spiked review of books, Tim Black writes on the ‘art instinct’. Why do humans seem to need art? Why are we so stirred by it? Is it an evolutionary trait, where aesthetic appreciation has been hardwired into human minds, or is this ‘instinct’ better understood as part of man as social being rather than man as biological being? We also have Frank Furedi on Energise!, a new book that refuses to take the misanthropic, restraint-promoting politics of being green at face value, and instead proposes that we treat climate change as a discrete problem rather than an end-of-the-world morality tale. Sean Collins looks at the links between Nixonland (America at the end of the 1960s) and Obamaland (America today) and asks how the Culture Wars have shaped up since Nixon discovered America’s ‘Silent Majority’. Nathalie Rothschild enjoys Cosmo Landesman’s romp through his hippy family history and his musings on celebrity culture, and Stuart Derbyshire finds a new book on the link between ‘sex and war’ to be flaccid and dumb. There is much more, too. Enjoy! [Cover illustration by Jan Bowman.] |
| Welcome to January’s review of books |
Tim Black
There are two big theories about the economic downturn. The first tells us that this is a financial crisis brought about by reckless, gambling bankers in our ‘age of greed’. The second suggests that the recession – and even old-fashioned austerity – might be a good thing, since it will reduce our destructive consumption habits. There’s even a new term for the pro-recession outlook: ‘austerity chic’. In this issue of the spiked review of books, we take a cudgel to both theories. Sean Collins points out that we’re living through a crisis of the real economy, and explains how the increasing role of finance from the 1980s onwards sprung from stagnation in productive industry. And Neil Davenport reminds us what austerity was like in the past, when it did not increase ‘spirituality’ and ‘solidarity’ but rather hunger and authoritarianism. We also have Mick Hume on reclaiming childhood, Tim Black on Russell Brand, Jennie Bristow on modern-day witch-hunts, and much more. Enjoy! [Cover illustration by Jan Bowman.] |
| Welcome to December’s review |
Tim Black
What better as an intellectual sandwich-filler between the relaxation of Christmas and the excitement and anticipation of a new year than an ideas-packed spiked review of books? To get your intellectual juices flowing as we approach 2009, this issue tackles everything from autism and human rights, to earwax and professional revolutionism. Helene Guldberg interviews Dr Michael Fitzpatrick about his new book Defeating Autism: A Damaging Delusion, in which he argues that the quack industry, with its fruitless ‘war against autism’, is distancing parents from their children and even harming autistic kids. Philip Hammond explodes the myth of human rights as an unalloyed good on the sixtieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration. Guy Rundle says we should reclaim Sam Adams, America’s great but forgotten revolutionary. Nathalie Rothschild plays anthropologist to that strangest of tribes: ‘white people’. And Stuart Derbyshire explores the link between snot and earwax and what it means to be human. There's much more besides. Tuck in. [Cover illustration by Jan Bowman.] |
| Welcome to November’s review |
Tim Black
Over the past seven days, the spectre of childhood obesity has made a comeback, the UK government has launched a campaign to tell dads to get more involved in child-rearing, and the tragic case of Baby P has been cited as evidence that step-parents / single parents / young parents are harming kids and offending against common morality. It seems every problem faced by society can be blamed on bad, badly informed or slack parents. It is timely, then, that a second edition of Frank Furedi’s 2001 book Paranoid Parenting is being published. In this month’s spiked review of books, Furedi says the problems of mistrust of adults and expert intervention into family life that he described in 2001 have worsened, and says it is time we all challenged the parent-bashers. We also have Kenan Malik on the Rushdie Affair; Mícheál Mac Giolla Phádraig on the IRA; Rob Lyons on the super-rich capitalists stoking climate alarmism; and much, much more. Enjoy! [Cover illustration by Jan Bowman.] |
| Welcome to October’s review of books |
Tim Black
As the ‘most important election in American history’ (aren’t they all?) speedily approaches, John McCain is held up as the traditional, militaristic, rugged leader in contrast to the effete Obama. But it’s a myth – and in this month’s spiked review of books, Sean Collins shoots it down. Surveying McCain’s life, times and politics, Collins finds that the Republican candidate has far more in common with Obama than many believe: from their self-celebration to their anti-ideological campaigning, from their above-party stance to their ‘personal touch’, McCain and Obama may look different but both are a product of the emptying out of American political debate and the rise of the ‘politics of therapy’. Also this month, we have Dr Michael Fitzpatrick on ‘bad science’, Philip Hammond on celebrity imperialism in Darfur, John Gillott on Einstein’s quantum wars, Nathalie Rothschild on immigrants in the land of the free, and much more. Enjoy! [Illustration by Jan Bowman.] |
| Welcome to August’s Review of Books |
Tim Black
Anyone who grew up in the 1980s will remember the AIDS scare and its aura of apocalypse – or ‘apocalypse from now on’, as Susan Sontag described it. There were the terrifying TV ads; the billboard posters warning people to wear a condom or ‘die of ignorance’; the transformation of the old playground refrain ‘eurgh, you kissed a girl’ into ‘eurgh, you’re going to get AIDS’. Fear of AIDS shaped the outlook of a generation; it encouraged restraint and chastity, on the basis of apparently fact-based fears rather than old-fashioned morality. But it was built on myth and misinformation. In this spiked review of books, Dr Michael Fitzpatrick, who has challenged the AIDS scare since the late 1980s, welcomes the ‘better late than never’ admission by former AIDS insiders that they ‘beat up the facts’. He also points out that on other issues, too – from obesity to climate change – science continues to be prostituted for propaganda purposes. We also have Frank Furedi calling for an injection of true morality into contemporary debate, Tim Black on the real Franz Kafka, Neil Davenport on conformist forms of rebellion, and much, much more. Enjoy! [Cover illustration by Jan Bowman.] |
| Welcome to July’s Review of Books |
Tim Black
We’re often told that American politics is too divisive, too ‘hyper-partisan’. One reason why Barack Obama is currently being lauded during his JFK-style trip across Europe is because he is envisioned as a new kind of politician: open, inclusive and not too bitchy (and also because there are precious few politicos in Europe to get excited about). Yet as Sean Collins reveals in this month’s spiked review of books, the idea of America as politically super-divided is misleading; rather, it is the decline of serious political debate, and its replacement by petty lifestyle issues, that makes America’s ‘political landscape’ seem shrill and combative. Collins asks why Americans are forming ‘lifestyle tribes’, and what can be done to challenge it. We also have Mick Hume celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of Alan Sillitoe’s still-exhilarating Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, Dolan Cummings on scary corporate shills, Francis Phillips on Julian Barnes’ empty godlessness, and much more. Enjoy! [Cover illustration by Jan Bowman.] |
| Welcome to June’s Review of Books |
Tim Black
After women’s lib, do we need some parents’ lib? In a striking new essay in this month’s spiked review of books, Jennie Bristow traces the historic shifts in the ‘woman question’ – from Engels’ and Mill’s understanding that women’s oppression was a product of the shortcoming of capitalism as a whole, to the rise of divisive ‘cultural’ and ‘victim feminism’ in the second half of the twentieth century. Bristow argues that, today, feminism, rather than challenging the nature of the family under capitalism, has ended up justifying greater state intervention in the home to protect women and children from men. It’s time for some family freedom. We also have an extract from Kenan Malik's new book Strange Fruit: Why Both Sides are Wrong in the Race Debate, looking at how twenty-first century sociobiologists are naturalising ‘racial feelings’; Sean Collins takes a journey through the post-American world; Guy Rundle dissects the controversy over Nicholson Baker’s Human Smoke; and I write on the metamorphosis of George Monbiot. Enjoy! [Cover illustration by Jan Bowman.] |
| Welcome to May’s review of books |
Tim Black
In May 2007, we launched the spiked review of books as an ‘arena’ where writers could ‘launch salvos in the battle of ideas’; we promised that ‘no books will be burnt, though the debate will get heated’. In keeping with our pledge to debate ideas – thoroughly and seriously – rather than write any of them off as ‘beyond this pale’, the current May 2008 issue of the review looks at important new books on irrational currents in contemporary society. Dr Michael Fitzpatrick asks if the radical backlash against alternative medicine is helping to enlighten debate, or stifle it. Frank Furedi reviews a crucial new text on the historical ‘war against babies’ and in favour of population control. Mick Hume asks why even respectable, sensible scientists can be labelled ‘deniers’ and ‘heretics’ in the debate about climate change. We also look at ‘Real England’, the truth about the ‘Obama-phenomenon’, Cherie Blair’s memoirs and much more. Enjoy – and please donate here to help keep the review alive and kicking. [Cover illustration by Jan Bowman.] |
| Welcome to April’s Review of Books |
Tim Black
This issue of the spiked review of books marks two anniversaries. The first is the fortieth anniversary of the tumultuous year of 1968. Frank Furedi looks back on his short career as a student radical and says he treasures ‘the feelings and experiences’ of the late 1960s. Yet he argues that probably the key driving force behind the shifts in the Sixties was not student radicalism itself, but the crisis and cowardice of the Western elites. Michael Fitzpatrick revisits Derry 1968, one of the forgotten uprisings of that year, when he says Ireland experienced a rare ‘moment of truth’. Philip Hammond traces the journeys of Bernard Kouchner and Joschka Fischer, who moved from manning the barricades in ’68 to overseeing or justifying the bombing of Yugoslavia and Iraq in the 1990s and today. The second anniversary concerns the spiked review of books itself: this is our twelfth issue. We launched the review a year ago in May 2007, as a place where writers could conduct ‘thought experiments’ and ‘launch salvos in the battle of ideas’. And as it becomes clear that the questions of authority, purpose and morality that burst on to the international stage in 1968 remain unresolved, we need just such a laboratory of ideas more than ever. [Cover illustration: Jan Bowman] |
| Welcome to March’s Review of Books |
Tim Black
You can wear a red one for AIDS, a pink one for breast cancer, or a blue one to show your concern about the troops still being in Iraq, child abuse, censorship on the World Wide Web, second-hand smoke, or the kidnap victims of Basque separatists (with only so many colours in the spectrum, some ribbons symbolise many different things). If a kitsch, one-quid ribbon doesn't suit your dress sense, how about a wristband instead? There's the white one to make poverty history (which everyone has stopped wearing - does that mean poverty is history, or that its trendiness as a campaign is history?), and the new yellow one to complain about Chinese pollution. Why is everyone tying themselves in knots with technicolour ribbons and wristbands? In this month's spiked review of books, Jennie Bristow explores the relentless rise of the 'ribbon culture' and what it reveals about our morbid and narcissistic society. We also have Richard Reeves talking about his new biography of a dead white male with something stirring to say - John Stuart Mill; Michael Baum on the war against cancer; Philip Cunliffe on the politics of chaos in the Middle East; and much, much more. Enjoy! [Illustration by Jan Bowman.] |
| Welcome to February’s review of books |
Tim Black
Do you suffer from Harried Woman Syndrome? Perhaps you have Compulsive Acquisition Disorder? Maybe you’re one of millions laid low by Affluenza, whose symptoms include buying lots of mod cons, trying to hide the signs of ageing and chasing the latest fashionable garb. In the past, they called it ‘getting on in the world’ when families got good jobs, bought nice homes and fast cars, and moved from the Realm of Making Ends Meet to the Kingdom of Living Comfortably. Now our desire for ‘stuff’ is described as a mental disorder, a habit we must kick ASAP. In this month’s spiked review of books, Daniel Ben-Ami - in a review of new books by Oliver James and John Naish - says he’s had enough of the theory of Enoughism, and puts the case for the creation of more wealth and comfort around the world. We also have Frank Furedi asking what role Big Business played in the development of environmentalism, Sean Collins on how There Will Be Blood waters down Upton Sinclair’s Oil!, a Celtic fan defending the right of Rangers fans to abuse him, and much, much more. Enjoy! [Cover illustration by Jan Bowman.] |
| Welcome to January’s Review of Books |
Tim Black
Welcome to the first spiked review of books of 2008, in which we continue to wage a war of words against misanthropy and heretic-hunting. This month we have invited Alexander Cockburn to outline what many consider to be his eccentric views on climate change. Cockburn tells how he has been witch-hunted by modern-day ‘hysterics’ for daring to question the consensus. Damian Thompson explains why he has taken up the cudgel against ‘counterknowledge’ - the conspiracy theories and pseudo-science which, he argues, are spreading like wildfire in 21st century dinner-party circles. Meanwhile, spiked regular Dr Michael Fitzpatrick, who has fought a sometimes lonely battle for reason in the MMR-autism debacle of the past 10 years, revisits the British media’s anti-MMR mania. For spiked, the only way to challenge irrationalism is through a loud and rowdy and fully free battle of ideas. We also have Sean Collins on ‘hyperpartisanship’, Tim Black on ‘big ideas’, Daniel Ben-Ami on the origins of green miserabilism, and much more. Enjoy! [Cover illustration by Jan Bowman.] |
Welcome to Dec’s
Review of Books |
Tim Black
Welcome to the December issue of the spiked review of books. In keeping with the Christmas spirit - well, the Christmas spirit as spiked sees it: secularised celebrations of the human spirit and material advancement - our lead review is Michael Fitzpatrick on Terry Eagleton’s insightful study of the gospels. Whatever today’s shrill New Atheists might argue, the New Testament is magnificently poetic, says Fitzpatrick - and the Kingdom of God turns out to be a ‘surprisingly materialist affair’, notes Eagleton. Yet the salvation drama in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John remains a ‘consolatory fantasy’; we would do better to look for hope in the open-ended nature of humanity rather than in the Good Book. We also have John Fitzpatrick paying stirring tribute to the Putney Debaters of seventeenth-century England (and to Geoffrey Robertson’s excellent new edition of their debates), whose heated discussions in a south-west London church echoed around the world. Plus: Toby Young on ‘loser lit’; Tony Gilland on the truth about climate change; Helene Guldberg on the medicalisation of shyness (and other normal emotions); and much more. Enjoy - and Merry Christmas from all at spiked! [Illustration by Jan Bowman.] |
| Welcome to Nov’s Review of Books |
Tim Black
Western officials waging a war against terrorism often claim to be engaged in a ‘battle of ideas’. But what ideas are they battling to defend? That is never made clear. Aside from a rhetorical championing of the Western ‘way of life’ (whatever that might mean) and ‘Western values’ (which no one dares define), big ideas are notable by their absence on this battlefield. This spiked review of books unpicks the terror phenomenon. I interview Frank Furedi about his new book Invitation to Terror. Elsewhere, Furedi argues that foreign policy is driven by incoherence, and ‘humanitarianism’ is the antithesis of humanism. In defence of the Terror, Dolan Cummings reviews a new edition of Maximilien Robespierre’s speeches, and finds that, for all the claims that Robespierre is the father of modern terrorism, he was incorruptibly committed to liberty and progress: a million miles from today’s webcam jihadists. Plus: the dogma of transparency, the Motherhood Wars, the world’s biggest miserabilist, and more. Enjoy! [Cover illustration by Jan Bowman.]
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| Welcome to October’s Review of Books |
Tim Black
Earlier this month, David Cameron, leader of the UK Tory Party, told his party conference: ‘The next Conservative government will begin a revolution…’ Make sure you are sitting comfortably before I tell you what the Cameroonian Revolution will consist of: the use of tax incentives to encourage Brits to use low-energy lightbulbs and eco-friendly windmills in order to save on electricity. So, when Cameron uses the word ‘revolution’, he means the number of revolutions it takes to screw in a bulb rather than a revolution in ideas, thought, action. At a time when politics feels flat and uninteresting, Mick Hume looks back to the Russian Revolution in this issue of the spiked review of books: to a time when metaphorical lightbulbs lit up in the minds of men and women who envisaged new ways to organise society. This is no Red-eyed nostalgia trip; rather Hume re-reads John Reed to see if there are lessons for today from that ‘torrent-like’ rising 90 years ago. We also have Frank Furedi on the Israel lobby, an exclusive on five books on terrorism that Britons are not allowed to read, and much, much more. Enjoy! [Cover illustration by Jan Bowman.] |
| Welcome to Sept’s Review of Books |
Tim Black
It is often said that we live in a ‘globalised age’. Apparently, cross-border threats such as smog and terror require internationalist solutions, the coming together of minds and men from around the world to fix our broken world. Yet, as we explore in this issue of the spiked review of books, it is a faux-internationalism, built on the emptying out of political debate and the circumvention of the public. Frank Furedi explores how the outsourcing of authority denigrates democracy. Faisal Devji examines why Osama bin Laden – ‘the ventriloquist’ – conducts his war of words in a global landscape. And James Heartfield reads two new New Labour diaries and discovers that Blairites much preferred jollies abroad to engagement at home. We also have Ann Furedi on the abortion wars, Andrew Calcutt on The Specials, Nathalie Rothschild on the many myths of Hollywood, and much more. Enjoy... and make the review itself global; send a link to your friends and foes. [Cover illustration by Jan Bowman.] |
| Welcome to August’s spiked review of books |
Tim Black
There is a new law of politics; we might call it the Law of Intended Curmudgeonliness. It rules that the more that life improves – the wealthier, healthier and safer we become – the more that miserabilists will fret about the dangers we face. Money makes us unhappy, they claim; affluence gives rise to ‘affluenza’; world travel tramples local communities underfoot, etczzz. The August issue of the spiked review of books is devoted to breaking this law. Daniel Ben-Ami counterpunches the critics of economic growth and puts the case for infecting all of humanity with 'affluenza' (that is, liberating everyone from the ‘realm of necessity’). Helene Guldberg argues that childhood is not as fraught or frightening as some believe. Peter Smith celebrates the benefits of increased international mobility. We also have Michael Fitzpatrick on why communism survived for so long, Dolan Cummings on the true spirit of Enlightenment, and studies of the heart and the brain and the role they play (or don’t play) in making us human. Enjoy… [Cover picture by Jan Bowman.] |
| Welcome to the July Review of Books |
Tim Black
‘What character- ises man is his extreme abundance of imagination.’ So said José Ortega y Gasset. This issue of the spiked review of books is a celebration of that imagination - and a call for it to be liberated from the ball-and-chain of today’s misanthropic outlook. Josie Appleton dips her toe into Alan Weisman’s intriguing thought experiment: his study of what the world would look like without the guiding hand of human rationality. Frank Furedi, taking on two new heavyweight books on the crisis of moral authority, says political thinking should strike free from the ‘prison of the present’. The studies of the lives and works of Thomas Jefferson and Henryk Grossman show that different men in different times, through preparing for war or applying analytical tools, have been able to imagine, and make, better worlds. Please enjoy the abundance of ideas herein.... [Cover picture by Jan Bowman.] |
| Welcome to the June Review of Books |
Tim Black
‘Freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men’s minds....’ So said Darwin, explaining why he wasn’t interested in ridiculing the religious (or bashing the Bible-bashers, one might say). That outlook — illumination over ridicule, knowledge over kneejerkism — is the theme of this second issue of the spiked review of books, what we might call the Ball-Busting Issue. Taking Darwin’s lead, Michael Fitzpatrick shows that today’s cheap shots against religion by ‘the New Atheists’ are frequently a cover for the atheists’ own moral disorientation. Mick Hume says the bizarre defence of ‘chicken’s rights’ calls into question the very idea of human superiority over beasts. And James Heartfield explains how New Leftish attacks on technology have slowed industrial growth and sustained disease and destitution in the Third World. spiked kicks against the pricks in power - but often the radical critics of the powers-that-be deserve a kicking, too. |
| Welcome to the spiked review of books |
Tim Black
First there were the Culture Wars; now we have the Book Review Wars. In the US, authors are ripping into newspapers for their ‘industry-wide scaling back of book reviews’. Books sections were once a place where arguments were had and thought experiments conducted. Where the news pages told us what was going on in the world, and the opinion pages explained why, the books section provided an arena for writers to take the pulse of the zeitgeist and to launch salvos in the battle of ideas. It is in this spirit that spiked launches its new monthly review of books, a space where no books will be burnt though the debate will get heated. Switch off the Oprah Book Club, dry your tears over your paper’s shrinking books section, and welcome to the must-read for readers everywhere. |
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