BOOKS OF THE YEAR
Paul Anderson writes:
Everyone else has been doing it, so here are the five non-fiction titles I’ve most enjoyed in 2007 in no particular order (no fiction because I’ve been reading 1930s and 1940s novels):
Simon Sebag Montefiore, Young Stalin
An absolute corker: lots of stuff from the Georgian archives and a stunning narrative. You couldn’t make it up.
Claude Lefort, Complications: Communism and the Dilemmas of Democracy
Veteran French libertarian democratic leftist responds (belatedly in English translation) to the hardcore French anticommunist histories of the 20th century. They’re not tough enough intellectually, he says. Right on!
Patrick Wright, Iron Curtain: From Stage to Cold War
Not quite sure it coheres, but this is a great history of the left’s delusions about Soviet communism.
Kenneth O Morgan, Michael Foot: A Life
Very readable and perhaps over-friendly, but hey, a solid piece of work on a lovely geezer.
Nick Cohen, What’s Left: How Liberals Lost Their Way
Well, I would, wouldn’t I?
Paul Anderson writes:
Everyone else has been doing it, so here are the five non-fiction titles I’ve most enjoyed in 2007 in no particular order (no fiction because I’ve been reading 1930s and 1940s novels):
Simon Sebag Montefiore, Young Stalin
An absolute corker: lots of stuff from the Georgian archives and a stunning narrative. You couldn’t make it up.
Claude Lefort, Complications: Communism and the Dilemmas of Democracy
Veteran French libertarian democratic leftist responds (belatedly in English translation) to the hardcore French anticommunist histories of the 20th century. They’re not tough enough intellectually, he says. Right on!
Patrick Wright, Iron Curtain: From Stage to Cold War
Not quite sure it coheres, but this is a great history of the left’s delusions about Soviet communism.
Kenneth O Morgan, Michael Foot: A Life
Very readable and perhaps over-friendly, but hey, a solid piece of work on a lovely geezer.
Nick Cohen, What’s Left: How Liberals Lost Their Way
Well, I would, wouldn’t I?
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Posted at 23:20
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Nick Cohen, What’s Left: How Liberals Lost Their Way
In what sense is this non-fiction?
In what sense is this non-fiction?
# posted by 
: 5:37 PM
: 5:37 PM
1. Darren: not sure but will give it some thought. Waugh, Greene, maybe some Priestley. But there's a large pile of dreck.
2. Anonymous: you are a third-rate smartarse.
2. Anonymous: you are a third-rate smartarse.
I suppose you think it's OK for Cohen to fake quotations by inserting words to change their meanings.
'In the absence of evidence Cohen resorts to falsification. He tells us that the far left’s “theorists had been saying since the early Nineties that if they got into bed with Islam they could ‘secretly try to win some of the young people who support it to a very different, independent, revolutionary socialist perspective’.”
The quote is from an article by Chris Harman in International Socialism journal 64. But Chris never used the word “secretly” – he called for an approach “which fights to win some of the young people”.
Cohen has changed a plea for honest debate into an advocacy of underhand methods. He may claim that it is a printing error or a harmless slip. He is either grossly incompetent or grossly dishonest. '
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/article.php?article_id=10759
But then I suppose truth isn't a high priority for Neo-Con proponents of the 'Noble Lie'.
Finally 'smartarse' like 'do-gooder' is one of those insults which reflect particularly badly on the insulter rather than the insultee.
'In the absence of evidence Cohen resorts to falsification. He tells us that the far left’s “theorists had been saying since the early Nineties that if they got into bed with Islam they could ‘secretly try to win some of the young people who support it to a very different, independent, revolutionary socialist perspective’.”
The quote is from an article by Chris Harman in International Socialism journal 64. But Chris never used the word “secretly” – he called for an approach “which fights to win some of the young people”.
Cohen has changed a plea for honest debate into an advocacy of underhand methods. He may claim that it is a printing error or a harmless slip. He is either grossly incompetent or grossly dishonest. '
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/article.php?article_id=10759
But then I suppose truth isn't a high priority for Neo-Con proponents of the 'Noble Lie'.
Finally 'smartarse' like 'do-gooder' is one of those insults which reflect particularly badly on the insulter rather than the insultee.
# posted by : 6:55 PM
: 6:55 PM
Oh gawd, Anonymous: give it up. You can't justify the utterly opportunist embrace of Islamism by the SWP, which has resulted in tears as I and others expected. And Leninism is by definition underhand. Fight Leninism! Fight Islamism!
Another resource to childish vulgar abuse and conveniently avoiding the point I made. Cohen has been proved (on this and many other occasions as you well know) to have fabricated evidence to suit his arguments. For your information I am neither a Leninist or an Islamist but I know a liar and a faker when I see one. For you to defend Cohen's dishonesty and to justify it on the grounds that his targets are 'underhand' themselves is shameful. Or would be if you had any shame.
# posted by : 11:03 PM
: 11:03 PM
I have no shame, because I think Cohen is honest even if he is wrong and you are an apologist for lying morons.
How can inserting words into a quote to change its meaning be an 'honest' mistake? I think it is clear who is the apologist in this exchange.
When Cohen's book was exposed for its dishonesty by blogs such as http://indecent-left.blogspot.com/
and
http://memory-hole.blog.co.uk/
your only defence was that Cohen was writing a 'polemic' and so presumably could make it up as he went along. your new tack is that the enemy is so vile that lies are a suitable method of attack.
I'll leave the last word to John Stuart Mill, "The worst offense that can be committed by a polemic is to stigmatize those who hold a contrary opinion as bad and immoral men."
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When Cohen's book was exposed for its dishonesty by blogs such as http://indecent-left.blogspot.com/
and
http://memory-hole.blog.co.uk/
your only defence was that Cohen was writing a 'polemic' and so presumably could make it up as he went along. your new tack is that the enemy is so vile that lies are a suitable method of attack.
I'll leave the last word to John Stuart Mill, "The worst offense that can be committed by a polemic is to stigmatize those who hold a contrary opinion as bad and immoral men."
# posted by : 11:25 PM
: 11:25 PM Links to this post:
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