Category: Long listsTTTT

Coming at a time when the global financial crisis and contracting of consumer spending is ushering in a new epoch for the fashion industry, To Die For offers a very plausible vision of how green could really be the new black. Taking particular issue with our current mania for both big-name labels and cheap fashion, To Die For sets an agenda for the urgent changes that can and need to be made by both the industry and the consumer. Far from outlining a future of drab, ethical clothing, Lucy Siegle believes that it is indeed possible to be an ‘ethical fashionista’, simply by being aware of how and where (and by whom) clothing is manufactured. The global banking crisis has put the consumer at a crossroads: when money is tight should we embrace cheap fast fashion to prop up an already engorged wardrobe, or should we reject this as the ultimate false economy and advocate a return to real fashion, bolstered by the principles of individualism and style pedigree? In this impassioned book, Siegle analyses the global epidemic of unsustainable fashion, taking stock of our economic health and moral accountabilities to expose the pitfalls of fast fashion. Refocusing the debate squarely back on the importance of basic consumer rights, Siegle reveals the truth behind cut price, bulk fashion and the importance of your purchasing decisions, advocating the case for a new sustainable design era where we are assured of value for money: ethically, morally and in real terms.

Taken from Fourth Estate

A frank and honest memoir by Britain’s former ambassador to Kabul which provides a unique, high-level insight into Western policy in Afghanistan.

For three years, from 2007 until 2010, Sherard Cowper-Coles was on the diplomatic frontline in Kabul as the West’s mission in Afghanistan sank deeper into crisis. First as British Ambassador and, later, as the Foreign Secretary’s Special Representative, he witnessed at first hand a struggle that by the time he left was swallowing billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money a year, and had already cost the lives of more than 2,000 coalition troops, including nearly 350 British soldiers, as well as tens of thousands of Afghans, in and out of uniform.

In Cables from Kabul he offers a ringside seat in this unfolding drama in a high-octane narrative that transports the reader from the backstreets of Kabul and fly-blown villages of the Helmand Valley to the corridors of power in London and Washington. Packed with colourful portraits of major political and diplomatic players such as President Karzai and the US Special Representative Richard Holbrooke, the book gives a rich flavour of embassy life in one of the most dangerous places on earth.

With his unique, high-level insight into the West’s policy in Afghanistan, Cowper-Coles raises fundamental questions about the viability of the whole Afghanistan project, even after the death of bin Laden. While paying fulsome tribute to the bravery of our soldiers and the tactical success they are undoubtedly achieving at a local level, he asks whether this will be enough to secure within three years the wider strategic goal of stabilising Afghanistan to the point where the Afghan authorities can govern the country without outside intervention.

As Our Man in Kabul, nobody is better placed to tell this story. Powerful, witty and astonishingly frank, Cables from Kabul explains how we got into the quagmire of Afghanistan, and how we can get out of it.

Taken from Harper Press

On an icy dawn morning in Paris in January 1943, 230 French women resisters were rounded up from the Gestapo detention camps and sent on a train to Auschwitz – the only train, in the four years of German occupation, to take women of the resistance to a death camp.The youngest was a schoolgirl of 15, the eldest a farmer’s wife of 68; there were among them teachers, biochemists, sales girls, secretaries, housewives and university lecturers.

Caroline Moorehead’s remarkable new book is the story of these women – the first time it has been told.It is about who they were, how and why they joined the resistance, how they were captured and treated by the French police and the Gestapo, their journey to Auschwitz and their daily life in the death camps – and about what it was like for the 49 survivors when they returned to France. Six of the women were still alive in 2010 and able to tell their stories. What they had to say – and this was confirmed by the children of those who died – was that great affection and camaraderie grew up among the group. They became friends, and it was precisely this friendship that kept so many of them alive.They supported and cared for one another, worked together, shared everything, watched out for each other and faced the horror together.Friendship, almost as much as luck, dictated survival.

Drawing on interviews with survivors and their families, on German, French and Polish archives, and on documents held by WW2 resistance organisations, A Train in Winter covers a harrowing part of our history but is, ultimately, a portrait of ordinary people, of bravery and endurance, and of the particular qualities of female friendship.

Taken from Vintage Books

For forty years, Christopher Hitchens has been at the epicentre of the battle of letters in Britain & America. This blockbuster volume is the collection of a lifetime.

‘As soon as we abandon our own reason,’ wrote Bertrand Russell, ‘and are content to rely upon authority, there is no end to our troubles.’ For over forty years, Christopher Hitchens has proclaimed truth where others have spun falsehood and written, with passionate commitment, on matters that others fear to broach. This volume of essays spans Hitchens’ whole career and encompasses his writing on politics, literature and religion. It is the most comprehensive collection of the work of the finest English essayist since Orwell. 

Arguably contains all aspects of Hitchens’ wide repertoire as journalist, polemicist and critic. Divided into sections such as: ‘All American’, ‘Eclectic Affinities’ and ‘Foreign Quarrels’, Hitchens unfolds his views on subjects ranging from Clinton to Kissinger; Powell to Proust.

Hitchens’ life has, above all else, been one of defiance and wit, courage and humility: in an age of digital punditry and twenty-four hour hucksterism, he has been a voice of reason amid the clamour, making his indelible and brilliant mark on politics and literature on both sides of the Atlantic. While his many books exist as a formidable legacy, it is his mastery of short-form journalism and criticism that constitute his lasting claim to greatness. Arguably is a unique anthology and the indispensible companion to the Anglosphere’s pre-eminent political writer.

Taken from Atlantic Books

In a timely and eye-opening book Rodric Braithwaite examines the Russian experience during the Soviet war in Afghanistan. Basing his account on Russian sources and interviews he shows the war through the eyes of the Russians themselves – politicians, officers, soldiers, advisers, journalists and women.
As former ambassador to Moscow, Rodric Braithwaite brings unique insights to the Soviet war in Afghanistan. The story has been distorted not only by Cold War propaganda but also by the myths of the nineteenth century Great Game. It moves from the high politics of the Kremlin to the lonely Russian conscripts in isolated mountain outposts. The parallels with Afghanistan today speak for themselves.’A superb achievement of narrative history, sensitive writing and exciting fresh research’: so wrote Simon Sebag Montefiore about Rodric Braithwaite’s bestsellerMoscow 1941. But those words, and many others of praise that were given it, could equally apply to his new book.

Taken from Profile Books

Longlisted articles published by the Irish Times and openDemocracy

Fintan O’Toole is assistant editor of The Irish Times and author of ‘Ship of Fools: How Stupidity and Corruption Killed the Celtic Tiger’. He has written for The Irish Times since 1988 and was drama critic for the New York Daily News from 1997 to 2001.

Submitted articles

Triumph of the spivs as democracy is sidelined

Reckless, feckless and feral employer is all talk, talk

Citizens trapped in a two-state nightmare

The week that Anglophobia died

Obama not just another excuse for blarney

Into Europe

Other links

Fintan O’Toole on Journalisted

Fintan O’Toole

Introduction Anna Chen’s blog. Writes and presents programmes for BBC Radio 4. First British Chinese comedian to write and perform at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (Suzy Wrong — Human Cannon, 1994) and appear on British television (Fist Of Fun, 1995). Writes and performs poetry. Madam Miaow casts a sharp eye over the political and cultural landscape and takes a scalpel and a shotgun to the guilty parties.
“Just imagine, the whole place being upset by one little Chinese girl in the scullery.” (Piccadilly, 1929)

Has written for New Internationalist magazine, the South China Morning Post, Tribune, the Guardian. Writer and presenter for BBC Radio 4

Taken from Madam Miaow Says

Submitted links

Seumas Milne on 9/11: some comrades more equal than others

Takeaway review: Theatre Royal Stratford East

Looting and the UK riots: as above, so below

Rupert Murdoch: ain’t our democracy wonderful?

All the tea in China: the return of the East India Company

Is China a responsible stakeholder? Chatham House report review

Ai Weiwei: the Monkey King goes missing

Working for the Clampdown: Niall Ferguson’s testosterone theory of history

Orange Tone: a poem about perma-tanned politicians

Militarised Hamlet at the National Theatre: review

Other links

Anna Chen’s website

John Rentoul is chief political commentator for The Independent on Sunday, and visiting fellow at Queen Mary, University of London, where he teaches contemporary history. Previously he was chief leader writer for The Independent. He has written a biography of Tony Blair, whom he admired more at the end of his time in office than he did at the beginning.

Taken from John Rentoul: Independent Blogs

Submitted posts

The Brace Position

The “Why Should I Tidy My Bedroom” Theory

Getting in touch with my inner Cromwell

Deceptiveness about Iraq

The Ridiculous Beatification of Brian Haw

A Higher Form of Something, Certainly

In (left-wing) praise of Tesco

George Osborne’s failure to buy gold cost up to £4.5bn

Another voice: Why Cameron had no choice but to fight

Banned List: the next 50

Other links

John Rentoul on Twitter

John Rentoul on Facebook

Bagehot columnist surveys the politics of Britain, British life and Britain’s place in the world. The column and blog are named after Walter Bagehot, an English journalist who was the editor of The Economist from 1861 to 1877

Taken from Bagehot’s Notebook

Submitted blogposts

Britain and the Nordic world: The strongest girls in the world

Family Values: Is marriage a symptom or a cause?

David Cameron in the Gulf: David Cameron defends the defence industry

Freedom of speech: The right to burn poppies

Ed Miliband: Labour’s flat-earthers demand the cuts go away

Cycling in London: Cyclists for crackdown on cyclists

Britain in Afghanistan: David Cameron’s hunt for Afghan exit strategy

Unethical journalism: The depressing tale of Johann Hari

Britain and the EU: Britain, not leaving but falling out of the EU

Britain and the EU: Could David Cameron have done anything other than walk away from the new EU treaty?

David Usborne joined The Independent at its launch in 1985. In April 2009 he became US Editor.
Taken from The Independent

Submitted articles

9/11: The day that changed my city

Deepwater Horizon: This was no Armageddon

A new dawn for Cuba as capitalism eclipses communism

‘I was reminded of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina – but the damage here is of a different degree’

President Mom: On the stump with the Tea Party’s Michele Bachmann

How Obama kept the biggest secret of his presidency

Other links

David Usborne on Journalisted
David Usborne on Twitter

Polly Curtis is the Guardian‘s Whitehall correspondent working in Houses of Parliament and writing about government, politics and policy. She has previously covered health, social affairs and education for the paper and is currently seconded to write Reality check, a daily blog fact-checking the biggest news stories of the day
Taken from The Guardian

Submitted posts

Pink v blue – are children born with gender preferences?

Government austerity cuts: are the rich or poor hit hardest?

Who’s telling the truth in the public sector pension row?

Do windfarms work?

What happens if Greece leaves the euro?

Reality check: is now the time for households to pay off their debts?

Reality check: can owning a cat be grounds for appeal against deportation?

Reality check: why is the coalition losing women voters?

Reality check: why are so few children being adopted?

Reality check: has the BBC dropped the terms BC/AD?