Review: Hidden Hand – How The Chinese Communist Party is Reshaping The World – by Clive Hamilton & Mareike Ohlberg

As a committed sinophile, this recently written book seemed a necessity. As China continues its rise to being the most dominant national force economically on the planet, it is quite difficult to obtain meaningful and relevant and unbiased factual information about its thoughts and the thoughts of its governing Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Aside from the political Iron Curtain, there is the language barrier. I studied Mandarin Chinese language at the Confucius Institute at Cardiff University for three years so have some basic linguistic and cultural understanding. This book is alike a definitive manual of people involved with the CCP internationally, its many umbrella organisations and its often discrete methods that it uses in order to obtain influence. I can see me often referring back to this book in the future for some of its well-researched detail. I did sometimes find a bias against the CCP and cannot see this book getting published in the mother country. Just the mention of the dreaded ‘Three T’s alone should suffice: (Tibet, Taiwan, Tianamen). The cast of international politicians linked in some way, often financially to the CCP was totally shocking. I was surprised to read of more Conservative Party involvement with China than indeed the more obvious socialist Labour Party. One thing is for sure, is that the CCP global reach is unilaterally widespread and with its full arsenal of orgs designed specifically to enhance the CCP and its broadening widescoping foreign policy it is certainly good to have this detailed out in print. I am totally blown away by the BRI (Belt and Road Initiative) and see it as being the most significant international global event over the next several decades. For me, being a Confucius Institute alumnus, I loved the chapters devoted to education. I believe that it is critically important for as many people as possible to open the doors to China by learning Mandarin Chinese. It is a beautiful language that is destined to replace English as the global lingua franca of business. I have currently raised some issues with my MP Jessica Morden (Labour), MS John Griffiths (Labour) and David Davies (Conservative). Liz Truss has announced that she intends to throw the Confucius Institute system out of the U.K. and replace the mainland Chinese teachers with the overseas Taiwan education program. I think this just demonstrates Miss Truss’ clear lack of ability to guide the U.K. sensibly and would be devastating to future generations of our education system as well as crippling our economy on a global scale. I am hoping that the local democratically elected politicians that I have approached can coherently persuade Prime Minister Liz Truss to come to her senses specifically over the Confucius Institute matter. I look forward to researching some of the material I have read and let’s hope that I can somehow grasp the intricacies of Ji Xinping thought.

Review: Prison Writing of Latin America by Joey Whitfield

Joey is a teacher of mine at MLANG in Cardiff University. This is his first book. It explores prison writing in Latin America and looks at abolitionism of the penal system and draws on some really rather delicate themes that expose the dark brutality of prisons in a developing continent where sometimes human rights can be totally thrown out of the window. There is a schism in the penal code between political prisoners and criminals and Joey looks at how these two groups affect each other’s progress through the system. Often it is the poorest and racially discriminated against that suffer the worst fates in the prison system. Poor, indigenous women victims of Reagan’s War on Drugs when Latin American governments need to satisfy captivity quotas in order to get their dollar funding are the ones which are locked away as they are easy targets for a corrupt police force. The first chapter looks at political writing within the prison system. I was totally blown away by the imprisoned Costa Rican author José León Sánchez. This man was a true victim of the system and was wrongly given a life imprisonment term on the barren prison island colony of San Lucas, condemned to carrying a ball and chain around with him whilst manacled all day. In the face of adversity, Sánchez became literate and his work ‘La isla de los hombres solos’ catapulted him into national and international fame, his original work confounding all the critics. Chapter 2 of Whitfield is very dark and difficult to read. It explores homosexual love in the prison system, from rape through to desperate displays of machisimo. The men turn to each other in a way of confronting the system. This chapter looks mainly at imprisoned Cubans. Chapter 3 is brutal in the way it describes the prison massacres of Senderoso Luminosa captives who fight wars with the Peruvian authorities from behind the door, all in defence of their leftist communist ideologies. Some of the worst prison massacres in history occurred in Peru during the 1980s at the peak of the Senedero resistance guerrilla war with the state. Chapter 4 is about the War on Drugs where the Reagan administration turns its Southern hemisphere politics away from leftist insurgents and criminalises the narcotics industry, creating a new criminal class. Comando Vermelho (Red Command) is Brasil are a drug-trafficking criminal gang that originate in prisons and go on to seize control of the urban favelas in Brasil and based on resitance tactics and influence from political prisoners their command structure do a lot for prisoner rights within South America. There are interesting references to the decadent tourist industry in La Paz where the Bolivian prison system has been opened up by a UK prisoner’s book (Marching Powder) which glamourises the capitalist excesses of the jail there.
I found Whitfield’s book to be neat and compact, well-researched, with clear translations from the author when excerpts of Spanish or Portuguese texts were required. There is a shock element to the book and it is hard to imagine what life is really like for these prisoners. Through literature they have discovered a means of dealing with their suffering and I think that one of the main points that Joey makes is that this prison literature is important if we wish to develop more progressive ideas about how to deal with this marginalised element of society. There is sympathy there but also we see excesses of the banality of evil that lurks in these bins of society and this is often mirrored in real life in the criminal enterprises that originally give birth to the prison.

Review: Happy Mondays – Excess All Areas – by Simon Spence

This is the third Simon Spence book that I have read. He is a very talented music journalist from Manchester with a taste for documenting, wild, stylish cultural movements that have emerged from the Madchester craziness. Excess All Areas covers perhaps the most successful and innovative band to have ridden the early acid house craze that swept the nation in the mate 1980s. With the charismatic Shaun Ryder heading up the band, a true hedonist, a notorious substance abuser, it was always difficult for the true Happy Mondays to translate through the myriad web of journalists who tried to document them. Ryder, much to the annoyance of most of the musical backdrop of the band, Paul Ryder (Bass), Gary Whelan (Drums), Paul Davis (keyboard), Mark Day (Guitar), Mark ‘Bez’ Berry (dancer), got into a habit of blagging the press and feeding them over the top exaggerations of the band’s history and exploits. In hindsight, this was pure marketing genius and led to much of the mystery and notoriety that paved the way for success. However, it sifting all the bullshit, has made the writing of this book that much more difficult for Simon Spence. The early days of a relatively privileged middle class upbringing contrasts with the bunch of Manchester council estate ‘scallies’ they tried to portray themselves as. Sure there was petty crime and shopflifting etc. but nothing serious, although perhaps the addition of Bez to the group was actually verging on real true life crime as he obviously was up to the neck in it as a youngster and quite obviously expanded his mini empire quite a lot under the guise of being part of the band…. Manchester Giants, Factory Records and Tony Wilson picked up the band and signed them which paved their way to success following the ilk of luminaries Joy Division and New Order and allowing them direct access to one of the UK’s most influential music venues, the Haçienda. It all happened at just the right time for this band, as the cultural rebellion against failed Thatcherism took hold of the UK’s disillusioned youth masses and expressed itself in the ‘Acid House’ movement. Ecstasy-fuelled, fashion shifts, mass movement and gathering of people in raves, parties and festivals, vast increase in polydrug clubbing and mainstream ending of anti-drug taboos. A lot of this movement was driven by DJs and the Mondays’ uniqueness was that they became one of the first genuine rock/dance crossover groups, who embraced the lifestyle and tried their best to incorporate the new music technology into traditional guitar-based rock. They were definitely pioneers in this sense and for me their link up with Spectrum’s Paul Oakenfold and his studio partner Steve Osbourne, was absolutely critical. Early days there was a struggle for financial success and Factory mismanagement of funds and artistic decadence led to much poverty. Heavy use of narcotics: cocaine, crack, heroin and ecstasy, was where a lot of the cash ended up. Bez and Shaun often boasted of being ecstasy dealers and there presence in the Hacienda’s E corner was much felt. The struggles of professional music led to relationship breakdowns and the loneliness of single life manifested in some serious drug addictions, mainly Shaun’s heroin addiction. This was all brutal and eyeopening to read. You always felt a little sorry for the band and as you read want to really have been giving them all a big cuddle, but maybe that’s just the ‘E’ talking…. Success eventually came with four critically acclaimed studio albums. They threatened a US breakthrough but never managed to follow the likes of Depeche Mode in emulating this, often short, late bands sets and excessive tour partying contributed to this failure. However, in the UK they were a huge band and record sales were good. The music press looked after them very well. Melody Maker, NME et al supporting most of the early stuff and shooting them on many front covers. At one stage, after Princess Diana, Shaun Ryder was the second most publicised celebrity in the UK. The legendary Barbados crack cocaine binge / studio session is covered although I wanted to hear a more complete tale of the actual detailed goings on of this debacle. Ultimately the band fell apart due to the multitudinous variety of industry pressures. However, the positive note is that they continued to rock on and as I write this my tickets have just arrived for their Nov 29th gig on their latest Greatest hits tour, where they will be doing an event at my Student Union at Cardiff University. Can’t wait for that, nor to get to grips with Simon Spence’s next offering.

Review: French Industrial Relations in the New World Economy – by Nick Parsons

This book focuses on the different components that comprise French Industrial relations, neatly divided up into 8 distinct chapters with a thorough introduction and conclusion. Each chapter goes into detailing a particular aspect of the French Labour movement. It looks at the role of the State, Employers and also Trade Unions and the interactions that, often complicated, form the tenuous bond between each of these bodies. The climax of the book is in the final ‘Conflicts’ chapter which details strikes in France, a country where the population is globally recognised for its propensity to get onto the streets. France has a very strong Jacobin State, weak Trade Union membership and very high Collective Bargaining coverage. The uniqueness of French Industrial relations make this an interesting study and for my ‘History of French Labour’ course that I study at Cardiff University (taught by author of this volume, Dr Nick Parsons), the book is an essential read and a key source of reference. It builds on less comprehensive studies of French Industrial relations that I have picked up from other books.

Review: Marxism and the French Left – by Tony Judt

This is an in depth study of socialism in France. The book is broken up into a series of long chapters, each covering a critical period of the political left in France. The emergence of working class political culture in the nineteenth century is explored and we see the development of trade unionism and the creation of socialist parties. The development of the social party, the SFIO is looked at in detail, prior to its rise to power under Blum. We then see the decline in the power of the socialists as they concede proletariat votes to the PCF, communists. The chapter on the French communists looks at the theorists who were so successful at internationalising the ideas and images of French Marxism. Sartre among the most famous, also there is a detailed study of Althusser, who unlike many of the French Marxist writers – was also an actual member of the PCF. The tailing off off Communist popularity as it clung hopelessly to the vestiges of Stalinism, leads to the book’s final chapter, where the rise of the socialists yet again, culminates in the ascendancy of Mitterand at the 1981 French general elections where the socialists swept surprisingly into power. this victory is compared with the Revolution of 1791 and the Paris Commune of 1871 in terms of its relevance to leftist politics in France. I found this book to be very detailed and some chapters were a bit tricky in terms of ideas and specialist vocabulary – but the book, read for a History of French Labour course at Cardiff University – has certainly enlightened me on certain aspects of French working class politics and I feel that the knowledge imparted has been vital.

Review: Liberté, Égalité and Fraternité at Work – by Steve Jefferys

This is a relatively concise look at Employment relations in France. Taken from a contrastive Anglo-Saxon point of view, the author explores the intricacies of the French economic system and how industrial relations are different in France than other Western capitalist nations. In France, strikes, in particular by public sector workers, are notoriously common and tend to make headlines around the world. This study reveals some of the reasons for the French workers’ propensity to take strike action. The government tends to have a major effect on working life and state intervention is common in the French economy. From the effects of Vichy to the Gaullist dirigisme through to the more recent Aubry laws to the present day, the effects of the state, mixed in with the demands of employer and employee associations, there is a complex web of interactions. Trade Unionism in France is relatively undersubscribed but has a large ability to mobilise the workers en masse. There is a myriad of acronyms relating to the various unions and other associations. The CGT, the CFDT, the FO, the employer association Medef. All of these contribute in their own right to forming the employment relations. France has a strong welfare element to its state and has also moved away from its more traditional family-owned patrimonial role of the employer to being more Americanised in its business models with international pension funds being more predominant in the stock market. This book is a great introductory text for my History of French Labour course at Cardiff University and I felt that the author does a very good job of explaining how the French economy operates. I would imagine that over the next year I will be regularly thumbing the pages of this text for reference.

Review: In Other Words – A Coursebook On Translation – by Mona Baker

This Mona Baker book is a core text on my Translation (MA) at Cardiff University. We use the text to accompany the Translation Methods Course. The early chapter of equivalence at word level and how to translate non equivalence is particularly interesting, useful and a strong section of the well-written precise coursebook. On occasion there is perhaps an abundance of examples although Baker covers a range of different languages, often straying into non-European, non-standard foreign tongues. In this new edition there is a valuable additional chapter on Ethics and Morality. This is a fashionable area of current Translation research. I feel that the book is an essential read for anyone considering Translation as a profession or those who study it at degree level. To a lay reader, perhaps the in depth detail is a bit profound. However, the book remains very accessible and is an ideal entry level text for students. This book will be well-thumbed in my reference section.

Review: The Politics of Translation in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance – by Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski, Luise von Flotow, Daniel Russell

The Politics of Translation in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance by Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I discovered this book in the Cardiff University library and thought it would provide a valuable insight into translation in history. I am interested in general history of the Renaissance and Middle Ages and found that this book helped to transfer pre-existing knowledge to the field of Translation. The book is a selection of academic papers from primarily North American institutes, There seemed to be a lot of emphasis on the French language as a vernacular and also, more obviously, Latin. I suppose that this reflects the importance of French as a cultural language at the time. It precedes English as the global lingua franca by some distance.

The general introduction chapters were very useful in terms of setting into context the role of translation during the epoque and the political implications that a translator would consider.

The stand out chapter for me introduces the subject of Etienne Dolet, a translation martyr who was sentenced to death and executed as a result of his work. The Dolet tale was an intriguing one and demonstrates clearly how a target-language’s cultural attitudes have to be taken into consideration when working as a translator. I feel that Dolet is a person upon whom I would like to follow up research throughout the course of my Translation degree.

I am a keen fan of Montaigne and it had previously eluded me that a lot of his great work was inspired by his activities as a translator. There are two chapters covering his translation of Raimond Sebond and the detailed critique that has ensued regarding the fidelity of his translation and the speculation of the true political motives behind his methodology. I think that very often, in translation, some of the reasoning and suppositions of translation critics fail to address the actual linguistical differences between foreign tongues. There are massive style changes at work that are bound to change the register of the original author and the translator would often introduce new ideas and themes only at a subliminal level, although that could very reasonably be done within the culture and political / historic climate of the current prevailing target-culture.

This book covers a wide variety of other topics, some of which are more relevant and interesting than others. I enjoyed The Alfredan Boethius chapter. The work of Eusebius on Vergil’s 4th Eclogue and also there was a certain romance to Leo Africanus’ story.

I think that this book is quite specialised and obviously could be very much more enlarged with further examples. It is a nice, neat text to furnish a translator with examples of some of the perils his journey might face. I’ll definitely refer to this book in future studies.

View all my reviews

Review: Becoming a Translator: An Introduction to the Theory and Practice of Translation – by Douglas Robinson

Becoming a Translator: An Introduction to the Theory and Practice of Translation by Douglas Robinson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is another book I’ve read in preparation for the Translation (BA) at Cardiff University on which I’m about to embark. This book aims not so much at the theories of Translation Studies as in other textbooks I have read but focuses more on life as a professional translator. It is preparation for the world of work and discusses many of the issues which one might encounter if one is successful in this career choice. The book has its own ideas and it does perhaps over-apply its terminologies of pattern-building and intuitive leaps. I found it a bit wishy-washy in places as I am still very new to the ideas of Translation. It is easy enough to understand as a basic concept yet the actual science of translation can be quite complicated. There are some nice, practical exercises at the end of each chapter which are good food for thought. I think that this book was a good introduction to translation and I can see it being a useful source of reference for me in years to come.

View all my reviews

Review: Introducing Translation Studies: Theories and Applications – by Jeremy Munday

Introducing Translation Studies: Theories and Applications by Jeremy Munday
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ahead of embarking upon a Translation (BA) at Cardiff University, I thought I’d prepare by investigating one of the course textbooks. This introduction to Translation Studies was a revelation in how it introduced me to the new terminology I will be working with. I initially found the introduction of new models and ways of thinking a little daunting, but by the end of chapter twelve I felt that I was making progress in understanding the general gists of translation studies. The chapter on machine translation was the most appealing to me and I see this as an area in which I might specialise. The case studies at the end of each chapter were particularly thought-provoking and useful in allowing you to grasp the concepts at discussion in each chapter. I felt that this book was an ideal way to anticipate my future degree and I look forward to referring back to this text as my studies progress.

View all my reviews