*** PRESS RELEASES ***
The Pulse of Race and Music
by Candace Allen
978-1908096210 *** £11.99 *** Hardback ***
Can classical music change lives? In Soul Music, novelist and former activist of African descent, Candace Allen asks whether the pitched battles between ‘our’ music and ‘their’ music of her youth are alive among young people engaged in music study. She follows the beat of music – from Blues, Miles Davis as friend of the family, hiphop, musical to classical – in her own life to places where different cultures meet.
Her personal journey takes her to the streets of London and Scotland, Venezuela, where the Sistema scheme has offered thousands of young people a route out of the ghetto mentality through virtuoso musical training, bringing global fame to the charismatic conductor Gustavo Dudamel; to the Middle East, and Daniel Barenboim’s East-West Divan Orchestra in which young Israelis and Palestians play side by side; and to Soweto and a pioneering opera project.
Advance praise for Soul Music: The Pulse of Race and Music
‘Intriguing and sometimes disturbing series of reflections on the interplay of race and music, particularly western music... Enthralled by her grasp of the educational subtleties of El Sistema... There is much food for contemplation and much for confrontation.’
Norman Lebrecht
‘How it feels to be free... So powerful... She reveals much about what lies at the heart of any journey into so-called classical music.’
Guy Dammann
Music Critic of Times Literary Supplement
‘Thoughtful and passionate and needs to be read.’
Alan Davey
Chief Executive Arts Council
‘Only [Candace Allen] has the background to write on music from this perspective.’
Martin Campbell-White
CEO Askonas
‘The most interesting book to date on the subject of social music projects.... passion, zeal and candour...will appeal and infuriate.’
Marshall Marcus
Director Southbank Centre’s Sistema Research Programme
‘Amazing wordcraft... devastating throwaway insights... how the generation younger than mine is using musical culture to inspire hope.’
Simon Hewitt-Jones
Founder of Fifth Quadrant and participant in the David Barenboim West-East Divan Orchestra
Why Economic Equality Is Essential for Recovery
by Stewart Lansley
978-1908096067 *** £8.99 *** Paperback
The 1980s mantra held that inequality would lead to robust economies - why did it fail? Why does the modern economy consist of two tracks: a fast one for the super-rich and a stalled one for everyone else? What is the cost of a consumer economy without purchasing power? Why are there now a few thousand individuals in the world who control almost a third of its wealth?
This ground-breaking book, based on years of research, shows that only greater equality will lead the West out of permanent recession.
‘A great book – read it!’
Richard Wilkinson, co-author of The Spirit Level
‘Compelling.... urgent.’
Times Higher Education Supplement
‘Very timely.’
Sunday Times
New Statesman Book of the Year Peter Wilby
‘Seminal.’ Neal Lawson,
Guardian Comment
‘Clear…correct.’
Money Week
‘With this book in your hand you never need to go into an argument unarmed.’
Red Pepper
‘Devastating.’
Nial Cooper, Church Action on Poverty
‘Intricately, and with a great wealth of research, shows us the great failure of neo-liberal politics.’ leftfootforward.org
‘Important.’
Christopher Garroway de Coninck, Europe’s World
‘Places the issue of inequality squarely at the root of the crisis.’
New Internationalist
The Inside Story of the NatWest Three
by David Bermingham
978-1908096197 *** £8.99 *** David Bermingham
In 2002, three British businessmen found themselves at the centre of the storm surrounding bankrupt US energy giant Enron, when they awoke one morning to see themselves on the breakfast news, accused by US prosecutors of defrauding their own bank in London. Under new extradition laws designed to combat terrorism the US government needed merely to allege a crime had happened to deport the three from the UK. The 'NatWest Three', as they quickly became known, embarked upon a campaign against the new law. They were supported by a coalition of national newspapers, civil liberties groups, business leaders and politicians, but were ultimately unsuccessful and were sent to face trial in Texas in July 2006. In this book, David Bermingham tells for the first time the full story of the NatWest Three, including their time in America, with no holds barred.
‘Read this and give a copy to a friend.’
Shami Chakrabarti - Director, Liberty
‘First class.’
Janis Sharp, mother of Gary McKinnon
‘You must read this book.’
Babar Ahmad - in prison since 2004 fighting extradition to the US
‘Will shock any businessman operating in the USA.’
David Carruthers - (former) CEO BETonSPORTS plc
The Toxic Cult of Sentimentality
by Theodore Dalrymple
9781906142254 *** £7.99 paperback *** 256 pp ***
‘Excellent.’
Toby Young
In this perceptive and witty book, former Birmingham prison doctor and psychiatrist Theodore Dalrymple unmasks the hidden sentimentality that is suffocating public life. Under the multiple guises of raising children well, caring for the underprivileged, assisting the less able and doing good generally, we are achieving quite the opposite - for the single purpose of feeling good about ourselves. Dalrymple takes the reader on both an entertaining and at times shocking journey through social, political, popular and literary issues as diverse as child tantrums, aggression, educational reform, honour killings, sexual abuse, Che Guevara, Eric Segal, Romeo and Juliet, the McCanns, public emotions and the role of suffering, and shows the perverse results when we abandon logic in favour of the cult of feeling.
Drawing on his long experience of working with thousands of criminals and the mentally disturbed, Dalrymple proves that we can only hope to make a difference - if we start with thinking well.
Lessons in International Business
Introduced by Sir Richard Branson
NEW ****With an essay by Niall Ferguson on Collapse ****
9781906142728 *** £7.99 paperback *** 192 pp ***
(London, UK) Gibson Square is delighted to announce the UK publication in July 2010 of the hardback Globalisation Laid Baire. How can ethical globalisation affect our economy and how did it cause the financial melt-down. In this unique book twelve key business people, thinkers and politicians, introduced by global entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson, give their view on the threats and opportunities that lie ahead. Included among the contributors are Alan Greenspan, Sir Stuart Rose CEO of Marks & Spencer, Jim O’Neill head of Goldman Sachs research who coined the phrase BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) countries; Peter Jones of BBC Draggon’s Den; Cabinet Secretary Lord Mandelson, Clare Short, Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen, alternative globalisation expert and ecofeminist Vandana Shiva (Earth Democracy).
by Diana Mosley
Introduction by Deborah Devonshire
***Interviews by Duncan Fallowell (new)
***Portraits of Oswald Mosley and Lord Berners (new)
Edited by Martin Rynja
9781906142100 *** £8.99 Paperback *** 560 pp ***
*** 100 additional pages ***
(London, UK) Gibson Square is delighted to announce the UK publication of the paperback The Pursuit of Laughter. Written by Diana Mosley, the most glamorous Mitford sister, this is the edited collection of her writings from the private magazine she edited in the 1950s to the articles she wrote for many publications until her death in August 2003. Included for the first time in this volume are her last interview with Duncan Fallowell, her portrait of her husband Sir Oswald Mosley and her friend Lord Berners.
‘Oblique, ironic wit... sharp and perceptive.’
Anne de Courcy Daily Mail Critic's Choice
‘Fascinating.’
Daily Telegraph
‘Sketches of fascinating figures, from Cecil Beaton and the Duchess of Windsor to Putzi Hanfstaengl, Hitler of course and Dr Goebbels.’
Selina Hastings, Spectator
‘Sharp, funny, debunking and assertive…’
David Sexton, Evening Standard Book of the Week
‘Stuffed with lives and letters.’
Valerie Grove The Times
‘An Intimate portrait of an aristocratic extremist.’
Sunday Business Post
How Gordon Brown Lost a Decade and Cost a Fortune
by Eamonn Butler
(London, UK) Gibson Square is delighted to announce the UK publication of the B-format paperback The Rotten State of Britain. Written by Dr Eamonn Butler, head of the non-aligned Adam Smith Institute, the book is the first comprehensive assessment of the achievements of 12 years of New Labour in government based on 8 years of research from the vantage point of the Adam Smith Institute.
9781906142377 *** £8.99 B-format paperback *** 320 pp ***
‘Jaw-dropping.’ Catholic Herald
‘“A labour made crisis.”’
Guardian
‘Suicide may be the only answer. Though I will bet the bloody Labour Party has prohibited that on health and safety grounds, and that they won't be able to cremate the body because crematoria aren’t allowed to smoke any more'
Austin Mitchell, Labour MP, Mail on Sunday
‘“We’ve all been made criminals.”’
Sunday Times
‘Turns and bites Labour: The left was, to be sure, asking for it. Its hyperbole in the Thatcher and Major years, both in the pronouncements of the Labour party and in the polemic coming from the left intelligentsia (over the state of a mid-1990s Britain that was getting steadily richer) begged for a payback. This book is evidence that it is getting it.’ John Lloyd, Financial Times
‘Lucid.’
Sunday Telegraph Book of the Week
‘Police who make criminals of the innocent… anti-terror adverts that leave us terrified… security cameras that make us more insecure… No wonder we’re all scared stiff’
Daily Mail
‘We used to think this kind of thing happened only in benighted tin-pot dictatorships. It underlines the fact that we are rapidly becoming a police state’
Sunday Express
‘Greed: all about it’
The Scotsman
‘At a time when there is an almost instinctive longing for the return of the state this book offers a provocative counterweight… Timely and worrying… a devastating report card.’ Professor Trentmann, Sunday Express
‘The book ‘that should do the same for Blair and Brown as Hutton did for Thatcher and Major…So, yes, there's plenty to apologise for – but Gordon Brown hasn't even started yet’ Brian Monteith, The Scotsman
‘A no holds barred critique of the achievements of New Labour’
Evening Standard
‘“Britain has become a bureaucratic and authoritarian state.’”
Daily Telegraph
A Wolf in the World?
by George Walden
9781906142162 *** £8.99 Paperback *** 320 pages ***
(London, UK) Gibson Square is delighted to announce the UK publication of the paperback China. Written by George Walden, social commentator, former diplomat and politician, this is his memoir of over four decades of involvement with China from the moment he was one of a handful Westerners who spoke Mandarin in 1960s Beijing - then at the height of the Cultural Revolution.
‘A sobering account’
Sunday Telegraph
A No 1 Amazon book on China
TLS Book of the Year
‘No book that I have seen is half as insightful.’ Edward Luttwak
The First Elected Female Head of Government in the West
by Elinor Burkett
Introduction Jonathan Freedland
9781906142131 *** £9.99 Paperback *** 504 pages ***
(London, UK) Gibson Square is delighted to announce the UK publication of the paperback Golda Meir. Written by Elinor Burkett, a Pulitzer Prize nominee, this is the first authoritative biography in almost 25 years. Based for the first time on cabinet papers and Meir's confidants, it paints a timely picture of Israel's most popular and controversial leader and how she made Israel popular in the world through a balance of realism and idealism.
‘Must rank as the most stimulating biography of the year.’
Tribune Very Best Book
‘Fascinating’
Sunday Times
Top 3 Amazon women biography
‘Excellent’ Gerald Kaufman,
Mail on Sunday
‘A good biography was long-overdue… beautifully written.’
Jewish Chronicle
‘Breaks significant new ground.’
Philip Jacobson Sunday Times Magazine
‘Excellent’
Lord Owen
‘Fair-minded’
Guardian
‘Comprehensively researched… well-written.’
Tribune
