Booklaunch
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Issue 10 | Winter 2021 | £4.25 where sold
www.booklaunch.london
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Until Covid-19, wealth in Europe was outflanking US growth rates
The pandemic has devastated economic performance and exacerbated sovereign debt. And while the superwealthy have already shrugged off their losses, most leading economists see wealth inequality growing, according to Oxfam at the end of January. ‘Rigged economies are funnelling wealth to a rich elite who are riding out the pandemic in luxury’, said Oxfam International’s Executive Director, Gabriela Bucher, and that’s ‘a policy choice’. ‘Governments must take the opportunity to build more equal, more inclusive economies.’
On the other hand, advanced countries with the highest GDP may have been knocked off their perches by Covid-19 and their higher levels of borrowing, resulting in a degree of levelling between the nations. Five years ago, IMF data showed a very different picture. Household net wealth was high and growing in most advanced economies, with wealth-income ratios in France, Germany and the UK returning to the high levels last seen in the 19th century, and doing so faster than in the USA. See page 8.
Much of France’s empire was closer to hand than Britain’s—a short ride down the Atlantic coast, past Spain to West Africa. France celebrated the fact in its International Colonial Exhibition of 1931, which gave visitors a ‘tour of the world in a day’. A new book from the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles illustrates some of the visual artefacts used by the French to represent and define their peoples. See page 6-7
How to promote social democracy to young voters Parliamentarian or
Inside the tureen lay an envelope marked ‘Sherlock Holmes, Esq.’. He flicked it to me. It contained a single sheet of Trafalgar blue note paper upon which were written the words: ‘Dear Holmes, Your compulsive urge to interfere in my life presents a tendency of the most diabolical kind. Given our mutual interest in cascades, I suggest we meet at the Old Roar Waterfall above Hastings, conveniently near your bee-farm in Sussex. Shall we say around two o’clock on the afternoon of the first Monday of the coming month?’ See page 18
January 2021 marked the 40th anniversary of the Limehouse Declaration and the launch of the Social Democratic Party (SDP). Through the 1980s, according to the authors of a new book on the future of social democracy, the SDP offered the most coherent ideas to challenge Thatcherism. Social democratic ideas were central to the ethos of the Liberal Democrats, the party formed from a merger of the SDP and the Liberals in 1988-89. But they also, arguably, became the intellectual bedrock to Blairism and New Labour, leaving LibDem members with the problem of how to regain control of what they see as their own political heritage. In 2015, the Social Democrat Group was formed to grapple with this problem and a new book of essays has now appeared, with contributions from, among others, Vince Cable, Chris Huhne and Roger Liddle, the latter of whom was more associated with the Labour Party, as Special Adviser on European matters to Tony Blair, before becoming Principal Adviser to the President of the European Commission. The book is a defence of social democracy and an attempt to show how its ideas can be deployed to combat growing poverty, the aftermath of Britain’s exit from the European Union and the rise of populism, which it sees as an increasing threat. See page 4
royalist? The mystery of a Civil War rebel John Poyer is hard to understand. Although he was governor of ‘Penbroke’ [sic] and a force to be reckoned with in the politics of mid-17th-century Wales, he made enemies at a time when many were jockeying for position, trying to anticipate whether King Charles I would survive the Cromwellian revolt or be brought down by it. Poyer, possibly more principled, called it wrong, prompting Lloyd Bowen, Reader in Early Modern History at Cardiff University, to want to know more. Author of a more general study of Welsh politics leading up to the Civil Wars, Bowen specialises in the controversies surrounding Charles’s religious and financial innovations in Wales and has offered fresh insights into issues of Welsh allegiance. Of his earlier book, The Politics of the Principality: Wales c. 1603-1642, The Parliamentary History Yearbook Trust said it gave ‘a convincing explanation for Welsh royalism in the 1640’s’—one that the Welsh History Review felt could not be ignored. See page 5
ON OUR INSIDE PAGES Page 2 The editor speaks Page 3 Bad language, Lingualia and survey Page 4 The future of social democracy Page 5 John Poyer’s political Civil War flip Page 6 France’s Art Deco depiction of empire Page 8 How fiscal policy can help the poor Page 9 A new Britannica encyclopedia for children Page 14 The bugler boy in the Napoleonic Wars Page 15 From Bedales to the Royal Flying Corps Page 16 Mobile phones as an economic tool Page 17 The literature of military intelligence Page 18 A Sherlock Holmes mystery Page 19 Conan Doyle and literary appraisal
IN OTHER NEWS
l Bernard Cornwell, who penned the Foreword to Stephen Petty’s historical tale about a bugler in the 95th Rifles, is bringing back his Richard Sharpe character in a new novel this autumn. See page 14. l What on Earth Publishing’s new children’s encyclopedia marks the first return to print for American partner Britannica since 2012. See pages 9–13. l Professor Simon Ball, writing about Britain’s spy masters, is our latest Leeds U. academic. See page 17