It may seem paradoxical, but it is the case that some of the most powerfully life-affirming and enriching art and literature is not work that appears to be “positive”, “optimistic”, “hopeful” and “encouraging”, or that shows how the world could… Continue Reading
In the closing pages of her Women and the Revolution, published in 1938, Ethel Mannin insisted that women faced a stark choice: The women of today must either ally themselves with freedom and life, or with oppression and death; either… Continue Reading
On 6 October 1960, the film Spartacus opened in New York City’s DeMille Theatre.1Time Magazine celebrated “a new kind of Hollywood movie: a superspectacle with spiritual vitality and moral force”.2 Long-standing New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther was less… Continue Reading
You have to be realistic rather than optimistic or pessimistic—Ken Loach, 2008.1 Appearances are often deceptive. Kenneth Charles Loach is a slightly built and softly spoken Oxford University law graduate. Yet when it comes to a wide range of social,… Continue Reading