Katherine Hyde

Rubin on 'The Last Thousand Days of the British Empire'

Losing Hope, Glory and Assets
By MARTIN RUBIN
Wall Street Journal June 20, 2008

The Last Thousand Days of the British Empire
By Peter Clarke
(Bloomsbury, 559 pages, $35)

"The sun did set on the British Empire, after all, roughly 60 years ago, when Britain gave up the Indian Raj and of its Mandate over Palestine. Most histories of this seismic shift in world affairs focus on personalities---no surprise, given the outsize figures of the time: Churchill, Gandhi, Mountbatten, Truman, Weizmann, Ben-Gurion. But even the great are driven forward, in part, by forces larger than themselves.

"The supreme virtue of Peter Clarke's detailed account of Britain's last imperial days is his effort to describe those forces and register their effect. It is a complicated story---involving economic imperatives, political obstacles and social demands---but Mr. Clarke makes it all clear and captivating. He is maddeningly tendentious: He shows an obvious partiality to Britain, an outright hostility to Zionism, and a not-so-subtle distaste for the U.S. and its postwar rise. But it is not necessary to share Mr. Clarke's prejudices to value 'The Last Thousand Days of the British Empire.'"

---For Martin Rubin's full review, click here or visit www.wsj.com.

by Katherine Hyde

Martin Rubin on 'Austerity Britain: 1945-1951'

Revisiting the dark days of postwar Britain.

By Martin Rubin, Special to The (L.A.) Times
May 23, 2008

"In Austerity Britain: 1945-1951 [Walker & Co., 694pp, $45], British social historian David Kynaston tells the story of those drab, difficult postwar years so familiar to viewers of the stiff-upper-lip, black-and-white films the British studios were turning out at the time ("Brief Encounter," "Passport to Pimlico"). Reading the many first-person accounts in this weighty, immensely detailed and sometimes evocative volume, you begin to see that, for countless people in that place at that time, life really was lived in a world devoid of color---a place of long lines, of shortages, of frustration.

"All the combatant nations of World War II had their problems adjusting to postwar realities in the late 1940s, but the British had a particularly extended and hard time of it. Not, it is true, as tough as the Germans or the Japanese---but, after all, those countries had lost the war and Britain had won it. The cost of victory, however, had been high: the loss of Britain's foreign assets, the 'convertibility crisis' that saw a run on the pound sterling, and immense damage to public infrastructure and private property. . . ."

Click here for the full review or visit www.latimes.com.

by Katherine Hyde

Martin Rubin on British Food

When Britain went beyond the bland, found spice
The Washington Times, Sunday, June 1, 2008

THE MULTICULTURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH FOOD

By Panikos Panayi, The University of Chicago Press, $40, 288 pages, illus.

REVIEWED BY MARTIN RUBIN

"A couple of years ago, there was a certain amount of amusement mixed with some consternation when a poll revealed that Britain's favorite dish was none other than Chicken Tikka Masala. Not those insular perennials Fish and Chips or the Roast Beef of Olde England or even Spaghetti Bolognese, anglicized and familiarized by generations of children (of all ages) into their beloved Spag Boll. Not the American style hamburger, which swept aside the inferior British beefburger. Not even Curry, that Anglo-Indian dish brought back over two centuries of the Raj by pukka sahibs returning to the old country, but a genuine, authentic, truly Indian classic dish. No wonder Panikos Panayi, a British academic and son of a Greek Cypriot pastry chef, has aptly entitled his comprehensive and enlightening study, 'Spicing Up Britain.' . . ."

For Martin's full review, click here or visit www.washingtontimes.com.

by Katherine Hyde

Rubin on Livesey

BOOK REVIEW
'The House on Fortune Street' by Margot Livesey

Two cohabiting couples, four interlocking narratives and the vicissitudes of love and luck.
By Martin Rubin, L.A. Times, May 2, 2008

"The eponymous London house is not only the locus for the events quotidian and life-altering that take place within its walls but also a nexus for the myriad strings of this uncommonly attractive novel.

"At its outset, the story seems deceptively simple: Two young women, close friends since college, occupy its two apartments. Abigail, who owns the house, runs a small theatrical company; Dara, her tenant in a garden flat, is a psychologist at a counseling center. Dara is having a difficult time getting her lover to extricate himself from his former girlfriend and their child and commit himself fully to her. Abigail, though, seems blissfully happy with Sean, having succeeded in luring him away from his marriage and erstwhile soul mate.

"Pretty ordinary stuff, you might think -- not exactly unexplored territory. Yet in the hands of Scots-born novelist Margot Livesey, this seemingly mundane story has such substance and freshness that it draws the reader right in. Her style -- vibrant, evocative, irresistible -- has a lot to do with it: 'In the silent aftermath Sean couldn't help noticing that his familiar surroundings had taken on a new intensity; the sage-colored walls were more vivid, the stove shone more brightly, the refrigerator purred more insistently, the glasses gleamed. His home here was in danger.' . . ."

For the full review, click here or visit www.latimes.com.

by Katherine Hyde