Book review: the East, the West and the Rest: how and why emerging economies are changing the world

Steve Coulter reviews the latest title by Zambian economist Dambisa Moyo, looking closely at what the West will lose to the emerging economies of the East. How the West was Lost: Fifty Years of Economic Folly – and the Stark Choices Ahead. By Dambisa Moyo. London: Penguin. January 2011

Book review: the East, the West and the Rest: how and why emerging economies are changing the world.

Steve Coulter reviews the latest title by Zambian economist Dambisa Moyo, looking closely at what the West will lose to the emerging economies of the East. How the West was Lost: Fifty Years of Economic Folly – and the Stark Choices Ahead. By Dambisa Moyo. London: Penguin. January 2011.

Engendering city politics and educational thought: elite women and the London Labour Party, 1914-1965

This article uses biographical approaches to recover the contribution of hitherto neglected figures in the history of education and the political history of the Left in London. Place and location are important since it is important to grasp the uniqueness of the London County Council within the framework of English local government and of the London Labour Party within the framework of the Labour Party. In the 1920s and 1930s, under Herbert Morrison’s leadership, the London Labour Party made a deliberate policy of encouraging able women to run for election to the London County Council, particularly those who had received a good education. By the 1950s Labour women were well represented in this public-sector site and the Education Committee was dubbed ‘the Shrieking Sisterhood’. By this time, three women had been appointed to the chairmanship of the Education Committee (one Conservative and two Labour) and women formed the majority of its membership, although they lost ground after. When a biographical approach is adopted a more spacious idea of politics emerges to accommodate hitherto neglected figures. This article tells the stories of two Labour women whose participation in English educational policy-making has been missed: Helen Bentwich (1893-1972) and Eveline Lowe (1869-1956). It is based largely on a new source of manuscript material, personal papers in the Women’s Library at London Metropolitan University and the archive of Homerton College, Cambridge, and is part of a larger project examining the role of Labour women in London government. It contributes to revisionist debates about the place of women in the history of education, by providing new interpretations of urban education evolution that begin to appreciate the significance of women’s political journeys and the impact of their involvement

Cyril Scott, Segovia and the Sonatina for Guitar

Cyril Scott's guitar Sonatina, composed for Andres Segovia in 1927, was regarded for many decades as a lost work. Following its incomplete premiere in 1928, it disappeared from Segovia’s repertoire, remaining unpublished, unrecorded, and unavailable to other guitarists. The manuscript was thought to have perished, and the work acquired almost legendary status in the guitar world. The recovery of the manuscript in May 2001 confirms the Sonatina’s significance as a major break from the overtly Hispanic and folkloristically inspired pieces that dominate the pre-World War II repertoire of modern guitar music. The author’s researches into Segovia’s reception in Paris and London in the mid-1920s, and into other ‘lost’ works composed for Segovia at this time, provide a context in which the story of Scott's piece is unfolded and its significance assessed

The Impact of Transport Problems on Inner City Firms: Summary Report.

Firms in inner areas of Leeds and London were surveyed to determine the type, extent and severity of their transport problems. The problems were compared with tlose of firms in outer control areas of both cities. The important inner area problems were: congestion and delays on the journey to work, on business and visitor trips, and on commercial vehicle trips; inadequate on-site and on-street parking at the firm and at the destination of business trips; public transport difficulties for the journey to work; on-site delays for commercial vehicles; and on-street loading.Altiough firms in all areas experienced similar types of problem, the effect of congestion and parking WaS more severe in the inner areas, and as expected problems were more severe in London than in the corresponding area of Leeds. Solutions applicable to the inner areas are therefore likely to be appropriate elsewhere. The most common effect of problems was lost time. There were also cases of reduced efficiency, lost business, vehicle scheduling difficulties and staffing implications such as turnover and recruitment and staff dissatisfaction. Management had difficulty costing the effects of problems; however, when estimates were made the costs incurred were often considerable. Problems were, for the most part, local or site specific, and solutions are likely to be found within the study areas or at individual firms. However, in the case of congestion and of parking availability away from the firm the problems are more widespread, suggesting that solutions need to extend beyond the study areas

The Metropolis and Evangelical Life: Coherence and Fragmentation in the ‘Lost City of London’

This article examines the interplay of different processes of cultural and subjective fragmentation experienced by conservative evangelical Anglicans, based on an ethnographic study of a congregation in central London. The author focuses on the evangelistic speaking practices of members of this church to explore how individuals negotiate contradictory norms of interaction as they move through different city spaces, and considers their response to tensions created by the demands of their workplace and their religious lives. Drawing on Georg Simmel’s ‘The Metropolis and Mental Life’, the author argues that their faith provides a sense of coherence and unity that responds to experiences of cultural fragmentation characteristic of everyday life in the city, while simultaneously leading to a specific consciousness of moral fragmentation that is inherent to conservative evangelicalism

The lost chord

'The Lost Chord' was an experimental performance work, reconfiguring its mode of theatre, and relationship to media, according to the site of its presentation. It decontextualised and reassembled a range of materials, originating in the Victorian creative imagination, not usually experienced in a single performance event or in contemporary theatre. Uses of technology varied, depending on artistic considerations. Resources included 4 male singers, Edison cylinder, tape and original text by me, made in partnership with Opera North, (who hosted an earlier installation work of mine which pointed the way to this.) Grand Theatre, Leeds, Jan 2010 and Riverside Studios, London, Aug 2010 - 1 hr, 6 performances. The Lost Chord is the title of Arthur Sullivan's 1877 song depicting an erotic image of sublime connection through music (the organ) within a hymn-like soundworld. Its success was extended by its compatibility (in 3 min versions) with new cylinder recording technology. This was a jumping-off point for each set of performances, reflecting on the impact of technological change on late 19th-century creativity, enacting tensions between utopian and critical experiences of this. During performances, historic technologies in contemporary theatre modes evoked an atmosphere of exchange between past and present. Media were 'organs' channeling lost presences. The audience were presented with a formal dinner setting they were invited to join. The hosts spoke in emotionally intense fragments, caught in lost controversies and searches for departed loved ones, contesting their perceptions of the past and a technological future, through deconstructions of literary and musical texts by Bulwar-Lytton, Morris, Tennyson, Balfe, Sullivan and Anon

Life Expectancy at Birth for People with Serious Mental Illness and Other Major Disorders from a Secondary Mental Health Care Case Register in London

Despite improving healthcare, the gap in mortality between people with serious mental illness (SMI) and general population persists, especially for younger age groups. The electronic database from a large and comprehensive secondary mental healthcare provider in London was utilized to assess the impact of SMI diagnoses on life expectancy at birth.People who were diagnosed with SMI (schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder), substance use disorder, and depressive episode/disorder before the end of 2009 and under active review by the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (SLAM) in southeast London during 2007-09 comprised the sample, retrieved by the SLAM Case Register Interactive Search (CRIS) system. We estimated life expectancy at birth for people with SMI and each diagnosis, from national mortality returns between 2007-09, using a life table method.A total of 31,719 eligible people, aged 15 years or older, with SMI were analyzed. Among them, 1,370 died during 2007-09. Compared to national figures, all disorders were associated with substantially lower life expectancy: 8.0 to 14.6 life years lost for men and 9.8 to 17.5 life years lost for women. Highest reductions were found for men with schizophrenia (14.6 years lost) and women with schizoaffective disorders (17.5 years lost).The impact of serious mental illness on life expectancy is marked and generally higher than similarly calculated impacts of well-recognised adverse exposures such as smoking, diabetes and obesity. Strategies to identify and prevent causes of premature death are urgently required

Пам’ять, живі та мертві. Голокост у Болехові: пошук шести з шести мільйонів

Рецензія на книжку: Голокост у Болехові: пошук шести з шести мільйонів (Daniel Mendelsohn, The Lost. A Search for Six of Six Million, New York — London — Toronto — Sydney: Harper Perennial, 2007.