LRB 27,3 Feb 3rd 2005

The latest London Review of Books (Vol 27, #3 Feb 3rd 2005) has a remarkable and powerful long poem (?) by Eliot Weinberger 'What I heard about Iraq', simply based on soundbites. This shouldn't be missed - although, of course, supporters of the war and occupation could easily turn the form around.

There also very interesting and informative reviews of A Life of H.L.A.Hart (Oxford 2004, a surprise that this should be so... racy) by Thomas Nagel and Linda Colley writes about N.A.M.Rogers' Command of the Ocean: a Naval History of Britain 1649-1815 (Allen Lane 2004). Terry Eagleton writes about Pope John Paul II's 'dark face'. There's an entertaining review of a book about Godzilla. But of greatest relevance is a long and bleakly clear piece by Rashid Khalidi about Palestine 'After Arafat'. Khalidi is a great writer, an academic inheritor of Edward Said and his Resurrecting Empire (2004) is a must read about Iraq. Palestine and Israel are also central to the Diary by Naomi Shepherd, which includes a prediction made by Meron Benvenisti that an Israeli-Palestinian bi-national state within 20-30 years is inevitable.