Review

This new DVD offering from Undercurrents - released on 8 March to mark International Women's Day - compiles nine short films produced by women film-makers. Includes Helen Iles award winning Life Before Death, which reflects on women's experience of terminal illness and brief shorts taking a, sometimes humorous, look at topics such as ID cards, the mental health system, disability, the Clown Army and direct action against nuclear waste shipments in Germany. An eclectic mix and an ongoing…

Years ago I wrote admiringly (in NvA) of Pat Arrowsmith's poems and illustrations, Drawing to Extinction (Hearing Eye 2000), but now - with too little time and too few words to do them justice here's another clutch of books from Hearing Eye (hearing_eye@torriano.org). This is recommendation in itself and I envy the poets for being so chosen.

Miroslav Jancic (1935-2004), who was born in, exiled from, and returned to die,…

“It's always too soon to go home. And it's always too soon to calculate effect.” Activists who feel despondent and or just plain tired will read this book and take heart in our work and find purpose in the creative search for a better world. Solnit believes we've had many successes; we can and should rejoice - and then carry on.

“I once read an anecdote by someone in Women Strike for Peace, the first great antinuclear movement in the United States, the one that did…

On 7 July 2005 four young British men detonated bombs on London's public transport system, killing 52 people as well as themselves. Why they did it and how we can prevent future such attacks are the two central themes of Milan Rai's latest book, which combines a deeply moving tribute to the bombers' victims with the gripping, page-turning qualities of a good detective novel.

In the immediate aftermath of the attacks - and before the Government shrewdly re-focused the public debate…

Katharine von Schubert's book tells the story of a period of a year and half, when this young woman joined Quaker Peace and Social Witness's human rights observation programme in the West Bank. As such, I approached it with some trepidation. In the last few years, a number of volumes have emerged recounting the experiences of international activists in Palestine, from the International Solidarity Movement, Christian Peacemaker Teams and a range of other groups. Some have been very good, and…

Spirited Living is an essay written from the 2004 Swarthmore Lecture in which Simon Fisher, an experienced peace worker, lends a personal viewpoint to a call for Quakers to become more actively involved in peace activism or conflict transformation.

From the first chapter, the current status of the overall Quaker movement is challenged. It is represented as a somewhat confused and benign force in the global peace movement. The brief history of the Quakers given, including…

Jarhead is yet another Sam Mendes tour de force. This time bringing the Anthony Swofford memoirs of a US marine scout/sniper in the first Gulf War in Iraq to the big screen, once again Mendes has brought the same intensity and throw-away realism that his previous Hollywood adventures have also had.

Just like his previous big-budget outings, Jarhead adds an abstract or almost surreal quality to the very real and mundane nature of one aspect of the US way of life -…

The first time I saw this film must have been shortly after it was released some 35 years ago. I felt that what was being described within this pseudo-documentary could happen to both me and my mates - really scary!

I remember it as a film which had a greater shock value to me than the more famous Watkins film The War Game, and even after all of these years I still feel that it is a stronger and much more shocking movie. The film is set in the America of the not-too-distant future in…

Margaret Legum has written a good and interesting book, but not the one she set out to write.

Part of the problem is that the book emerged from a set of lectures given at a University of Capetown Summer School. There is therefore an expectation that the reader already has a relatively clear understanding of the social and ecological costs of unfettered capitalism. While this is true for South Africa, other parts of the world still have a (diminishing) cushion of illusion. I fear that…

People who want to change the world must buy this book.

Avian influenza, or “bird flu”, is going to change the world, and affect every struggle we are involved in, from global trade to the war in Iraq, via the world economy, immigration and animal rights. Mike Davis has put together a dense, readable book setting out the nature of the problem, and the deeper roots of the crisis in the present world system - in intensive agro-industry, dispossessed Third World slums, and corporate…

White Rose was the name of a student group in Munich that was engaged in the production of clandestine publications - leaflets that stated that the Nazi dictatorship were losing the war, and showed that it was totally futile to continue the conflict, especially after the horrific loss of German lives at Stalingrad.

The film concentrates on Sophie Scholl and, to a much lesser extent, her brother Hans, who were both leading figures within White Rose. It covers what happened to the pair…

One Voice is a compilation of two pieces by the renowned pacifist Vera Brittain, written during World War II. The first, Humiliation with Honour, is a reproduction of a series of letters from mother to son. The second, Seeds of Chaos, provides detailed and gruelling evidence of the human and cultural destruction stemming from the “obliteration bombing” policy adopted by the RAF in the 1940s. A foreword by her daughter, Shirley Williams, and introduction by Y Aleksandra…

This little book excites me more than the whole heavy stack that I recently received to review. It is immediate, politically and socially relevant, practical and comprehensive - we need it. Small-scale water power, that is.

The price of petroleum increases as reserves dwindle. Wars and coups are planned and executed to ensure the minority world gets what it considers “our oil”, no matter where it is. And those who complain about polluting coal based energy, also from a non renewal…

Devi Prasad's history of War Resisters' International covers the first fifty-plus years of its existence from 1921 to 1973-4.

Based on the records of statements from its Council and Executive and the proceedings and resolutions of its International Triennial Conferences and Study conferences, the book traces its development from an essentially anti-militarist and anti-conscription organisation to one with the broader agenda of promoting nonviolent direct action on a range of issues,…

This Guide is easy to understand and provides a good introduction to the steadily growing and varied fields of ethical careers. The articles and profiles cover the public and private sectors as well as voluntary work, and advice is given not only on how to get involved in the more obviously ethical careers such as environmental consultants and community workers, but introducing the growing opportunities offered as more and more companies, even “evil multinationals”, create corporate…