An anthology of Mike Marqusee's selected articles discussing Bob Dylan, the game of cricket, American Civil rights, Jewish identity, William Blake’s art, nationalism, Big Pharma, Labour Party politics, the films of John Ford, Flamenco music, the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish, the BDS campaign, Muhammad Ali and Italian Renaissance painting amongst many other topics explored with Marqusee's acute, erude and kaleidoscopic writings.
May 17, 2008
New Humanist, May-June 2008 Israel’s 60th birthday is being celebrated lavishly in Britain. The programme includes a gala fund-raising dinner at Windsor Castle in the presence of the Duke of Edinburgh, a variety show at Wembley Stadium and street parades in London and Manchester. Meanwhile, Palestinians and their supporters will be recalling the same event… Read more
Apr 19, 2008
Outlook (India), 19 April The International Olympic Committee is hoist on its own petard. On the one hand, it insists that politics and sport must be kept separate. On the other, it relies entirely on cooperation with governments to stage its quadrennial show. So keeping politics out of sport ends up meaning keeping whatever is… Read more
Daphna Baram salutes Mike Marqusee’s honest appraisal of his radical journey through religion and politics, If I Am Not for Myself Review in The Guardian, April 19 2008 The Mishnaic scholar Old Hillel is known, in both the Jewish and non-Jewish world, for his saying “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” It is no… Read more
Apr 5, 2008
Versions of this article appeared in The Hindu and The Guardian’s Comment is free It’s testimony to the awkward power of Martin Luther King’s life and work that so much effort has gone into sanitising his memory. Today he’s commemorated as an apostle of social harmony, a hero in the triumphant march of American progress…. Read more
Apr 4, 2008
Review: What Sport Tells Us About Life: Bradman’s Average, Zidane’s Kiss and other sporting lessons by Ed Smith. The Independent, 4 April Contrary to the title, this is really a book about what life tells us about sport, in particular, what we can learn about elite sport by examples and analyses drawn from other disciplines…. Read more
Apr 1, 2008
Red Pepper, April-May 2008 The Mysterious Chemistry of Social Change: the USA 1968 in Retrospect The last thing the legacy of 1968 needs is nostalgic commemoration. Even as it was happening, it was being packaged for consumption. Nor should we celebrate it in the name of some abstract spirit of resistance. It was a year… Read more
Mar 21, 2008
If I Am Not For Myself reviewed by Michael Kustow in The Independent Friday, 21 March 2008 When I had finished this book, I wanted to cheer. It concludes with “Confessions of a ‘Self-Hating Jew’”, a passionate dismissal of the accusation that anyone who criticises Israel must be an anti-Semite and, if Jewish, a self-hater…. Read more
