Wham! 10 Days in China
This documentary about Wham!’s 1985 visit to China captures the complex combination of late Cold War politics, commercial imperatives, and cultural exchanges that the episode encapsulated.
The Academic Bubble
Politics and culture from a contemporary historian‘s perspective.
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Stop, Look, and Listen #65
A round-up of what I have been reading and listening to this past week.
‘I Think That’s Deeply Immoral...’
A sharp disagreement between Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and Manzoor Moghal illustrated what was at stake in narrating the Ugandan Asian experience.
Stop, Look, and Listen #64
A round-up of what I have been reading and listening to this past week.
‘What’s Happened to Our Party?’
A question put to Wandsworth’s Conservative former council leader Ravi Govindia in 2022 offers a useful starting point for considering the rise and fall of a socially and economically liberal order.
‘He’s Not Your Typical Tory’
During his time as leader of Wandsworth Council, Ravi Govindia’s rhetoric oscillated between ideological and pragmatic, drawing in part on his experiences as a teenage refugee from Uganda.
Stop, Look, and Listen #63
A round-up of what I have been reading and listening to this past week.
‘The Weather Was More Unkind than the People’
Having come to Britain from Uganda as a refugee, Conservative politician Ravi Govindia’s reflections on this experience emphasised aspiration and successful integration, but also a sense of loss.
Stop, Look, and Listen #62
A round-up of what I have been reading and listening to this past week.
The Living Daylights (1962)
This short James Bond story explores the ambiguities of the Cold War, the professionalism and hierarchies of intelligence work, and the limitations of its protagonist’s brand of masculinity.
Stop, Look, and Listen #61
A round-up of what I have been reading and listening to this past week.
‘It’s Time We Were Trying Prosperity for a While’
Pursuing a literary career while suffering with persistent tuberculosis, Dashiell Hammett’s 1920s correspondence negotiated both his being disabled and his financial insecurity.
Stop, Look, and Listen #60
A round-up of what I have been reading and listening to this past week.
Bond, Rambo, and the Mujahideen
The Living Daylights and Rambo III both interwove the Soviet-Afghan War and late Cold War geopolitics more broadly into their very different generic formulae.
Stop, Look, and Listen #59
A round-up of what I have been reading and listening to this past week.
Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985)
This sequel played out a fantasy of refighting the Vietnam War, and celebrated the unrewarded bravery and sacrifice of America’s soldiers, while castigating their betrayal by the political class.
Stop, Look, and Listen #58
A round-up of what I have been reading and listening to this past week.
Stop, Look, and Listen #57
A round-up of what I have been reading and listening to this past week.
Passport to Pimlico and Ealing’s Canons
Over the decade after its release, Passport to Pimlico became a cornerstone of how Ealing’s comedies and other films, as well as those of its screenwriter and director, were seen as bodies of work.
Thomas the Tank Engine (1946)
The second book in The Railway Series introduced its most iconic character, whose childlike qualities appealed to a young audience even as they routinely resulted in chastening experiences.
Stop, Look, and Listen #56
A round-up of what I have been reading and listening to this past week.
Dead Man’s Wire
A film that captures the economic discontents and ideological confrontations of 1970s America, albeit in ways that elide some of the dynamics at play in the real events it is based upon.