This is not a story of a random Ukrainian musician that I have plucked out of the ether. I’ve been following the progress of the female DJ superstar, Marika Rossa, since 2012, before the crisis in Ukraine started. The internet brings musicians and fans together from every corner of the…
I am a new member of Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, in London. On a recent visit, I made use of the vast resources of a very well-stocked library at Chatham House and this book is the first of the loans that I have finished reading. It…
View More Review: Moscow Rules: What Drives Russia To Confront The West – by Keir Giles
Chatham House is the Royal Institute of International Affairs. It is based in St. James’ Square, Mayfair, London, a short walk from Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square. I have been a member of Chatham House for several months but with me being based in Wales all of my interactions thus far have…
View More Chatham House: How Effective Are The United States’ Sanctions? 19.06.2023
On May 28th 2023, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was giving a victory speech to the excited Turkish masses, who had democratically elected him to a third term as President of Turkey. He achieved 52.2% of the vote in the second round of elections compared with the 47.8% of the challenger, Kemal…
View More Erdoğan’s Third Term as President of Turkey and What It Means
Henry Kissinger, a prominent figure in U.S. foreign policy, celebrated his 100th birthday on May 27, 2023. Known for his role as National Security Advisor and Secretary of State, he is credited with pivotal moments like U.S.-China relations renewal and criticized for human rights issues in Latin America. His insights remain relevant in contemporary geopolitics.
View More Happy 100th Birthday Henry Kissinger
This is just another one of the many books I’ve read on the security services / spies / intelligence agencies in general. I guess I have a morbid fascination. Non-fiction throws up some pretty weird stuff – Life itself is a lot stranger than fiction. This tale from a turncoat…
View More Review: Defending The Realm – MI5 and The Shayler Affair – by Mark Hollingsworth and Nick Fielding
This book is quite old, first published in 1951, it dates from a period when the totalitarian reality of Hitler and Stalin were very much fresh in the mind. Hannah Arendt was a German Jew and this work is both philosophical, enlightening and gives a valuable educated insight into the…
View More Review: The Origins of Totalitariansm – by Hannah Arendt
What’s a grown 45 year old male doing reading a little Bosnian girl’s diary you might ask yourself. Well, it cropped up as a recommendation in a documentary on the war in the former Yugoslavia, a subject to which I have passionately researched from its genesis. The Balkans conflict is…
View More Review: Zlata’s Diary – A Child’s Life in Sarajevo – by Zlata Filipović
I was just chatting away to Ionutz a security nurse in the local mental hospital and he’s Romanian. I passed through Bucharest a few years ago en route to Istanbul on a train journey traversing Eastern Europe. Romania seemed quite rural, poor and quite different to the Europe with which…
View More Review: Red Horizons – The True Story of Nicolae & Elena Ceausescus’ Crimes, Lifestyle, and Corruption – by Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa
Under Nikita Khrushchev, the easing of oppression allowed Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” to emerge despite censorship. This poignant narrative reflects the grim reality of gulag life, showcasing a political prisoner’s struggle and survival amid harsh conditions, offering a lens into the human capacity for resilience and appreciation.
View More Review: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich – by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
I read a lot of Russian literature and am becoming a bit of an aficionado. This book was first recommended to me by an ex-girlfriend from Serbia and it’s taken me a while to actually get around to completing it but I finally have done so and can produce this…
View More Review: The Master and Margarita – by Mikhail Bulgakov
Graham Greene delivers here a classic espionage novel, fiction, set in Cuba around the time of the revolution, Greene writes in his knowledgeable subject area of expertise a comedy account of a chance vacuum salesman being recruited by Mi6 as their ‘Man in Havana.’ Struggling lone parent Wormold runs a…
View More Review: Our Man in Havana – by Graham Greene
‘War and Peace’ needs no introduction. It holds its place in the minds of contemporary society as a literary classic. One cannot pick up a newspaper article on great books without a passing mention of Leo Tolstoy’s masterpiece. Like other classical works such as the Bible, I think that their…
View More Review: War and Peace – by Leo Tolstoy
I am just about to embark in an online professional cybersecurity course with Masterschool in Tel Aviv, Israel. I am a relative novice in this field and in order to be as prepared as possible for the new academic venture I bought this introductory text to bring me up to…
View More Review: Cybersecurity: The Beginner’s Guide – by Dr Erdal Ozkaya
‘Kim’ is recognised as the greatest work of famous author Rudyard Kipling. This is a cult novel especially in espionage circles. It is fiction but documents the widely popular Great Game between the British Empire and Tsarist Russia, a clandestine cat and mouse conflict between the two powers fought out…
View More Review: Kim – by Rudyard Kipling