CONTENTS
Susan Watkins: Blue Labour?
Anatomy of the UK’s new crossbreed government, and the uneven electoral geography that produced it. Amid the ruins of New Labour’s economic model and spreading Euro-turbulence, what prospects for resistance to austerity’s impending axe?
Tom Hazeldine: The North Atlantic Counsel
Profile of the conflict-instigation NGO, International Crisis Group. Tom Hazeldine follows the parallel courses of its Atlanticist advocacy and of Western military aggressions, from the Balkans to Mesopotamia.
Paul Nugent: States and Social Contracts in Africa
Arguing for a renewed focus on political economy, Nugent surveys repertoires of state power and forms of social contract in Africa. Control of revenue, land and population as variables permuted by post-colonial regimes—and reordered by the pressures of structural adjustment.
Zhang Xudong: Poetics of Vanishing
Cinematic portraits of China’s breakneck social and economic transformation, as seen from street level at its provincial margins. Zhang Xudong on motifs of disappearance, demolition and mobility in the films of Jia Zhangke.
Hilary Rose and Steven Rose: Darwin and After
A century and a half on from Origin of Species, what is the present state of evolutionary theory? Hilary Rose and Steven Rose examine current debates around epigenesis, ‘evo-devo’ and adaptation, emphasizing—contra the determinists—contingency’s role in biological outcomes.
Stefan Jonsson: The Ideology of Universalism
Contending visions of universality, from Kantian common sense to the doctrine of human rights. Can a constellation of singularities emerge within the standardization envisaged by globalized production? Prompts from Musil, Gursky and the carpet-weavers of Kuyan-Bulak.
BOOK REVIEWS
Alistair Hennessy on Ronald Fraser, Napoleon’s Cursed War. Masterly close-quarters account of Spanish popular resistance to the Emperor’s designs, from the author of Blood of Spain.
Michael Mann on Peter Baldwin, The Narcissism of Minor Differences. Beneath the distinctions commonly perceived, do Europe and America fundamentally resemble one another?.
Kristin Surak on John L Comaroff and Jean Comaroff, Ethnicity, Inc. Anthropological case studies in the commodification of ethnic identity.
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Authors and Articles
1960-2010
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Paul Nugent,
‘The African State’
Zhang Xudong,
‘Poetics of Vanishing’
Stefan Jonsson,
‘The Ideology of Universalism’
Kristin Surak,
‘The Business of Belonging’
Nancy Fraser,
‘Feminism Co-opted?’
Editorials:
The End of New Labour, World Conjuncture, Afghanistan, NLR at 50, Wall Street Crisis, US Hegemony, NPT
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Articles:
Tom Hazeldine,
‘The North Atlantic Counsel’
Hilary Rose and Steven Rose,
‘Darwin and After’
Alistair Hennessy,
‘Spain’s Invisible Army’
Michael Mann,
‘Family Resemblances’
Perry Anderson, ‘Two Revolutions’
Tariq Ali,
‘President of Cant’