Given the power of the live experience, MIK SABIERS recommends Jon Spencer’s new album
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Biased history disappoints
JOHN GREEN awaits a definitive biography of Honecker, because it isn’t this one
GDR MILESTONE: Finland, Helsinki, CSCE Conference, The signing of the Final Act of the European Security Conference (CSCE) in Helisinki, Finland on August 1 1975 (L to R)) Helmut Schmidt, chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Erich Honecker, first secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, Gerald Ford president of the US and Bruno Kreisky, Chancellor of the Republic of Austria
[Horst Sturm/German Federal Archives/Public domain]
Reviews of T.P. Orchestre Poly-Rythmo, Tamikrest, and Dub Colossus
The bard celebrates two other fine practitioners of the art, and laments a lost brewer
This right-wing conspiracy theory is used to justify the coercive measures against gender, race and labour rights that best serve capitalism, attests GAVIN O’TOOLE
KENNY MONROSE recommends a new exhibition that highlights the significance of Black British music
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The Rise and Fall of Erich Honecker — The Man Who Built the Berlin Wall
by Nathan Morley, Pen & Sword, £25
I STUMBLED already over the title of this in-depth biography: Honecker only took over as general secretary of the party in 1971, 10 years after the wall was built under Walter Ulbricht’s leadership, even though he did play a central role in organising its construction.
The mock Der Spiegel cover sets the tone for this book. In his rather pedestrian prose, Morley gives us a largely fact-based account of Honecker’s life from his birth in Saarland in 1912 to his death in Chile in 1994.
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