THE FIRST World War was the most important event of the 20th century. From its four years of mud and mass slaughter the world we live in emerged. In 1964 the BBC produced a 26-part series entitled The Great War. It is now being repeated on BBC2 on Saturday nights.
GUY BURGESS, Donald Maclean, Kim Philby and Anthony Blunt were Britain's most notorious and successful 20th century spies. Their lives are depicted in the watchable BBC2 drama Cambridge Spies, a four-part series starting on Friday of this week.
NINA SIMONE, one of the greatest musicians of the 20th century, died two weeks ago at the age of 70. One of her best known songs, "My Baby Just Cares For Me", was a hit in 1987 after it was used to advertise Chanel No 5 perfume.
Marxist Theory After Trotsky Tony Cliff £12.99 (introductory offer) Bookmarks
THE NEXT time you find yourself shouting at the lies and propaganda on our TV screens, why not give yourself a break and get out one of the excellent videos currently available?
MEDIA REPORTS have repeated phrases from the US and British governments designed to con us into thinking this is a "humanitarian" war. But they don't want to admit the murky origins of some of those phrases. Obliterating Iraq is really about "fighting the battle for the hearts and minds of Iraqi people", we are told. Both the British and the US are well used to saying this about their dirty wars of occupation.
WAR, TERRITORIAL conquest, violence. Nothing we can do about that mate, it's human nature. That stock pub argument sums up the BBC's new Walking with Cavemen series on human evolution. The first episode looked at one of earliest apes to walk on two legs, a small animal called Australopithecus afarensis.
"THE WORLD is becoming a more frightening place." Few would disagree with Alex Callinicos's assertion in his new book, An Anti-Capitalist Manifesto (Polity, £12.50). And the challenge he poses: "What do we do about it?" is a question that will have been asked by everyone in the anti-war movement and the anti-capitalist movement from which it grew.
ANTI-IMPERIALISM: A Guide for the Movement (Bookmarks, £10) is a new book which critically analyses key aspects of imperialism. It begins with an excellent introduction from Tariq Ali and continues with articles on oil and imperialism, racism, nuclear weapons, civil liberties and much more.
