Category Archives: Book Review

From Zanzibar to Timbuktu

Posted on October 1, 2022 by Joel D. Hirst

“What will become of Africa?” That is the most common question asked by anybody who has spent any meaningful time on the continent. It is realism, not racism – that facile solution which is so common today in the minds … Continue reading →

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Hotel Bolivia

Posted on September 5, 2022 by Joel D. Hirst

There was likely no more dramatic place for Jews fleeing the holocaust to end up than Bolivia. But for a small group, that unlikely land is exactly where they found refuge from Hitler’s wickedness. The crevice in the high Andes … Continue reading →

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More on Money

Posted on September 2, 2022 by Joel D. Hirst

One (of the many) issues which caused me to quit social media (Facebook and Twitter specifically) was the monetization of ‘interactions’ – likes and shares and retweets. People with many ‘followers’, generating lots of ‘views’ or ‘engagements’ were able to … Continue reading →

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The Silk Roads and Slavery

Posted on August 29, 2022 by Joel D. Hirst

There was a thread running through “The Silk Roads: A New History of the World” that demands attention: the issue of slavery. Slavery as a constant. The empires of the past all became wealthy on the slave trade; and it … Continue reading →

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The Wilder Shores of Marx

Posted on August 28, 2022 by Joel D. Hirst

In the twilight hours of the Soviet Union’s disastrous political and economic experiment Anthony Daniels (who now writes as Theodore Dalrymple) began a unique project. To travel to the scraggly peripheries of the USSR, to get a feel for life … Continue reading →

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The Silk Roads: A New History

Posted on August 25, 2022 by Joel D. Hirst

We in the west study Western European history. There is nothing wrong with this, it brings the epic story of mankind into manageable chunks, into which we can then delve deeply. And western history is our history, America was made … Continue reading →

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The Moon and Sixpence

Posted on August 24, 2022 by Joel D. Hirst

This is not the first time I’ve read “The Moon and Sixpence” by W. Somerset Maugham. Maugham is England’s best Edwardian novelist, living in that turn of the century period when imperial decline was just visible on the edges, but … Continue reading →

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A Letter from Stalin

Posted on August 7, 2022 by Joel D. Hirst

Some people do only one thing, and that if they are lucky. Given the cacophony of life and the myriad people vying for meaning and significance against each other – 8,000,000,000 souls – how to stand out and be counted … Continue reading →

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The (Re) Making of the World

Posted on August 5, 2022 by Joel D. Hirst

Aleksandr Dugin, Russian philosopher and proponent of the idea of ‘Eurasianism’ has often highlighted the difference of what he considers ‘land based powers’ and ‘sea based powers’. In Dugin’s mind, the new war between Russia and the West is really … Continue reading →

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A Novel about Haiti

Posted on July 23, 2022 by Joel D. Hirst

Canape-Vert was written eighty years ago by two up-and-coming Haitian writers and chosen for a special prize by – among others – John Dos Passos. It is a novel about old Haiti written by Haitians; about the island peasantry and … Continue reading →

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