The Social Affairs Unit - Web Review http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/ The Social Affairs Unit identifies research with a potential to inform public policy and translates it from academic discourse into public debate. The ideas it promotes come largely from historians, sociologists and philosophers but also medical doctors and hard scientists. en-us 2010-03-17T15:12:31+00:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 John Burrow's chose the sane face of Whiggism, argues David Womersley: Lord Macaulay's History of England: Introduced and Selected by John Burrow http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/001999.php Lord Macaulay's History of England: Introduced and Selected by John Burrow Pp. 174. London and New York: Continuum, 2009 Paperback, £9.99 John Burrow, who died last November, was one of the most distinguished English intellectual historians of the latter part... 1999@http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/ Reviews - Books 2010-03-17T15:12:31+00:00 David Womersley asks, was the collapse of communism inevitable? The Rise and Fall of Communism - Archie Brown http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/001998.php The Rise and Fall of Communism by Archie Brown, Pp. xvi + 720. London: The Bodley Head, 2009 Hardback, £25 The end of the Cold War, when it arrived with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the... 1998@http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/ Reviews - Books 2010-03-17T14:26:40+00:00 A first-rate book which doesn't do what it says on the tin: Abolition: A History of Slavery and Antislavery - Seymour Drescher http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/001997.php Abolition: A History of Slavery and Antislavery by Seymour Drescher Pp. 484. Cambridge University Press, 2009 Hardback, £50; Paperback, £15.99 This is a first-rate book but with one fundamental caveat. Drescher, University Professor of History and Sociology at the University... 1997@http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/ Reviews - Books 2010-03-12T11:18:20+00:00 Theodore Dalrymple finds much to dislike in a job ad in the British Medical Journal http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/001996.php Theodore Dalrymple gets to grips with the rather odd preferences expressed in a job advertisement placed by the International Planned Parenthood Federation. An advertisement in a recent edition of the British Medical Journal caught my eye. It was for a... 1996@http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/ Two Moralities 2010-03-11T12:49:46+00:00 Northern Rock is wrong to subsidise Newcastle United, argues Theodore Dalrymple http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/001995.php Theodore Dalrymple is no fan of football. Northern Rock's subsidy - in other words the tax-payers' subsidy - of Newcastle United has done nothing to boost Dr Dalrymple's appreciation of the game. Northern Rock, that so distinguished itself by becoming... 1995@http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/ Sport 2010-03-11T12:21:11+00:00 The Sexual Mores of the Wealthy Lower Classes - or Lincoln Allison on why footballers are no worse than academics or writers http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/001994.php Lincoln Allison - author of The Global Politics of Sport and The Disrespect Agenda: How the Wrong Kind of Niceness is Making us Weak and Unhappy - argues that the behaviour of footballers isn't too bad when you consider that... 1994@http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/ Sport 2010-03-09T16:33:45+00:00 Appeasement, Croatia and the Left: Brendan Simms remembers an encounter with Michael Foot http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/001993.php Brendan Simms - Professor in the History of International Relations at the Centre of International Studies at the University of Cambridge - argues that Michael Foot, whilst he was often spectacularly wrong in his foreign policy stance, was very right... 1993@http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/ International Relations 2010-03-04T16:55:48+00:00 Let us start by sacking all the international lawyers - Brendan Simms on the Iraq Inquiry http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/001991.php Brendan Simms - Professor in the History of International Relations at the Centre of International Studies at the University of Cambridge - argues that wars are only ever deemed illegal if they end in failure. In 1868, the British Liberal... 1991@http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/ International Relations 2010-03-04T13:34:28+00:00 Bruckner's bleak work shows not so much the futility of bourgeois life, as the futility of trying to escape it, argues Brendan Simms: Pains of Youth - Ferdinand Bruckner in a new version by Martin Crimp http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/001992.php Ferdinand Bruckner's Pains of Youth translated/version by Martin Crimp, directed by Thea Sharrock National Theatre, London Cottesloe Theatre in repertory 21 October 2009 - 21 January 2010 Karl Kraus once famously said that pre-First World War Vienna was a "laboratory... 1992@http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/ Reviews - Theatre 2010-03-04T10:40:44+00:00 The Equality Bill is a licence to discriminate - Jan Davies explains why http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/001990.php The Equality Bill will make discrimination in the workplace worse not better. Or so argues solicitor Jan Davies. The Pope is usually good news for journalists. Reporting his pronouncements does not require research or much leg work, and his recent... 1990@http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/ Crime & Punishment 2010-03-03T12:29:34+00:00 The death of conservatism: Is "gut" conservatism really bad for the US and UK? Richard D North reflects on The Death of Conservatism - Sam Tanenhaus http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/001989.php The Death of Conservatism by Sam Tanenhaus New York: Random House, 2009 Hardback, £10 Sam Tanenhaus's book is a short, sweeping and vigorous denunciation of the Republican party's capitulation to its dissident redneck and revanchist tendencies (often these are combined,... 1989@http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/ Reviews - Books 2010-02-23T17:50:18+00:00 Nothing stops this book being an irritating bore: The Black Swan: The impact of the highly improbable - Nassim Nicholas Taleb http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/001988.php The Black Swan: The impact of the highly improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb Pp. 400. London: Penguin, 2008 Paperback, £9.99 A child hunkered down in a cellar in a war in Lebanon gets to reading and thinking about the world.... 1988@http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/ Reviews - Books 2010-02-12T15:02:38+00:00 Samuel Smiles would have loved this book: Outliers: The story of success http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/001987.php Outliers: The story of success by Malcolm Gladwell Pp. 320. London: Penguin, 2009 Paperback, £9.99 This book is very nearly as interesting as its author and his many fans think it is. I am a tiny bit snitty only because... 1987@http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/ Reviews - Books 2010-02-11T16:50:21+00:00 Keira Knightley as Celimene? David Womersley argues this is a return to the play's origins: The Misanthrope - Molière in a version by Martin Crimp http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/001986.php Molière's The Misanthrope translated/version by Martin Crimp, directed by Thea Sharrock Comedy Theatre, London 17 December 2009 - 13 March 2010 This production of Molière's masterpiece of 1666 has, of course, attracted most attention because of its casting. Keira Knightley... 1986@http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/ Reviews - Theatre 2010-02-09T19:08:19+00:00 So Why Did We Spare the Rod and Spoil the Child? Lincoln Allison fondly remembers being caned http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/001985.php Lincoln Allison - Emeritus Reader in Politics at the University of Warwick and author of The Disrespect Agenda: How the Wrong Kind of Niceness is Making us Weak and Unhappy - extols the virtues of the cane. While researching the... 1985@http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/ Crime & Punishment 2010-02-08T18:05:07+00:00