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Simon Tormey

In the wake of the unexpected Brexit and Trump votes in 2016, academics and commentators have been scratching their heads trying to work out what these extraordinary events represent. The dominant narrative is that in the wake of recession and financial crisis, those doing it tough have punished the political élites ...

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As we await the fate of the United Kingdom in its tortuous process of extricating itself from the European Union, what better time to produce a provocatively titled text purporting to trace nothing less than the rise and decline of the British nation? ... (read more)
It is a cliché to note that Gordon Brown is an enigma as far as contemporary British politics is concerned. A fundamentally decent man of high moral standing, Brown forged with Tony Blair arguably the most successful political partnership the United Kingdom has known ... ... (read more)

The blurb on the back of the book describes Varoufakis as ‘the most interesting man in the world’. It is a wonderful epithet and might even be true considering the interest that Varoufakis excites in the press and media. On another reading, he is also the luckiest man in the world given the extraordinary nature of his leap from talented if unheralded academic economist to Greek finance minister to international speaker and best-selling author. This is an important as well as an entertaining work: part diary, part critique of European political economy, and part thriller featuring a cast of villains of whom Ian Fleming would be proud. It is a heady concoction and a gripping read.

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Originally published in German, Albrecht Dümling’s The Vanished Musicians: Jewish refugees in Australia (Peter Lang), a fascinating compendium of Jewish musicians who found refuge in Australia in the 1930s and 1940s, is now available in Australian Diana K. Weekes’s excellent translation ...

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In an extraordinary year for British politics the gloriously unexpected triumph of Jeremy Corbyn in the Labour Party’s leadership election in September 2015 probably ranks ...

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Chronicles: On our troubled times by by Thomas Piketty, translated by Seth Ackerman

by
August 2016, no. 383

Thomas Piketty is of course the French economist who shot to fame, somewhat improbably, on the back of an 800-page tub thumper Capital in the Twenty-First Century ...

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What are the implications of the ever-accelerating revolution in information communication technology on our lives? Is the Internet a force for good, for increased freedom and democracy? Or are we so in thrall to the prophets of Silicon Valley that we have lost sight of the perils that lie in ‘big data’, the extension of algorithms and quantification into every ...