Politics and religion loom large in Samuel Johnson longlist
The announcement of the Samuel Johnson prize longlist earlier today reveals a nation troubled by god and war.Richard Dawkins's attack on religion, The God Delusion, is in contention for Britain's...
View ArticleSamuel Johnson shortlist packs political punch
Six-strong shortlist of £30,000 non-fiction prize covers the murder of Theo van Gogh, the exploits of a pioneering female archaelogist-cum-spy, and a portrait of the chaos of American rule in Iraq...
View ArticleHarsh reality dominates non-fiction prize shortlist
The book, Imperial Life in the Emerald City, by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, a former Washington Post bureau chief in Baghdad, also states that Baghdad's new traffic regulations after the CPA took charge were...
View ArticleFutile, fraudulent or worse
Imperial Life in the Emerald City by Rajiv Chandrasekaran and The Occupation of Iraq by Ali A Allawi are two very different books on Iraq that point to the same grim conclusion, writes Oliver...
View ArticleAward for account of life inside Iraq's Green Zone
A book chronicling the chaos and cronyism that characterised the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority's government of Iraq has swept to victory in the £30,000 Samuel Johnson non-fiction prize....
View ArticleBroken promises
Before the handover, Bremer [head of the US Coalition Provisional Authority] said a long goodbye. In his farewell meetings, he insisted that the CPA had set Iraq on the path to a democratic government,...
View Article