Issue 95-96

MATTHEW KNEALE

London-born Rome-residing Matthew Kneale has been a household name in literary circles since the success of his novel English Passengers, 2000. A story about a religious-scientific expedition that seeks The Garden of Eden in Tasmania, it is set against the background of the brutal destruction of the New World by British settlers and convicts.

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WOMEN'S RIGHTS IN THE COLD WAR

One of the great ironies of the Cold War is that the two superpowers often championed issues that they cared little about in practice. The East bloc defended the social rights of the world’s workers while treating their own citizens like indentured servants. The United States campaigned for political freedoms abroad while brutally oppressing or marginalising their own African-American and Native American populations at home. Any rhetoric that could be deployed against the enemy became a weapon in the wider ideological battle.

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SENSE OF HOPELESSNESS

Against the background of Bulgaria's economic crisis and political instability, it has become a matter of course for journalists, analysts and pollsters to "switch sides" depending on who happens to be the best bidder or the most ominous bully, rather than in keeping with a set of moral and professional principles that the media in the West try to adhere to. Occurrences of ardent critics of, say, GERB turning coat overnight and becoming equally ardent supporters of Boyko Borisov are something few would really give a thought to any longer.

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