Three great releases of lost concerts by Duke Ellington Orchestra, John Taylor & Stan Sulzman, and Joe Henderson
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‘Trumpian obfuscation at its finest’
DAN GLAZEBROOK takes issue with the false premises in a book on the rise of authoritarianism in the US
To rescue Kahlo from the clutches of the corporate art market, we need to acknowledge the overt and covert political dimensions of the work, demands GAVIN O’TOOLE
If you can see past the relentless commodification you will be rewarded by enormously powerful work, suggests JENNY MITCHELL
CHRIS SEARLE revels in the one-off collaboration between an American polymath and a British Muslim, and detects the presence of their revolutionary forebear
GORDON PARSONS revels in an ebullient production of Shakespeare’s magical comedy
BRENT CUTLER welcomes a thoughtful analysis of the Erdogan regime, viewed through the evolving history of a neighbourhood in Istanbul
GORDON PARSONS regrets the price, but is dazzled by an outstandingly ambitious study of the way art restoration in particular, and culture in general was weaponised by the Nazis
The New Authoritarianism: Trump, Populism and the Tyranny of Experts
by Salvatore Babones
(Polity Press, £9.99)
SALVATORE BABONES'S basic argument in this book is that liberalism’s focus on extending rights has transferred political power in Western countries from the people and their representatives to an “expert class” who identify and define those rights.
In his view, this apparently constitutes a new form of anti-democratic authoritarianism to which right-wing populism is a necessary corrective, the latest incarnation of a venerable US tradition of resisting such moves.
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PAUL BUHLE agrees that a grassroots movements for change in needed in the US, independent of electoral politics