T H I S W E E K
No. 6284
September 8 2023
the-tls.co.uk
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T H E T I M E S L I T E R A R Y S U P P L E M E N T
Rana Mitter China’s Platonic republic | Norma Clarke Jonathan Raban’s last days Andrew Motion Sebastian Faulks’s Neanderthal | Simon Jenkins The English country house
They’re out to get you
Modern conspiracy theories, by Nat Segnit
An anti-vaccination protest, New York Cit y, 2021 © Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Gett y Images
In this issue
I n popular belief, all of us have seven people in t h e w o r l d w h o l o o k l i k e u s . T h e r e a r e 8,045,311,447 human beings on the planet, or there- abouts, so the chances of finding a quasi-identical twin should be high. Fiction and myth arrived at this insight long before the advent of social media, with the idea of the doppelganger or spirit double. But what of intellectual doppelgangers?
To her despair, the liberal American intellectual Naomi Klein has a real-life doppelganger who parodies her work. Klein is increasingly confused on social media with Naomi Wolf, author of The Beauty Myth and now a liberal renegade who consorts with Donald Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon and other wild conspiracy theorists. In Doppelganger Klein claims that Wolf carves up passages from her book The Shock Doctrine and uses them to ill effect. As Wolf denies the verdict of the last American presidential election, and claims that government plans to encourage vaccine take-up are “one step away from concentration camps”, Klein is understandably alarmed.
Nat Segnit’s review of Doppelganger and other books about paranoid politics describes bizarre conspiracy theories that would be laugh-out-loud entertaining if the implications weren’t so serious. The recent convictions of the Proud Boys and other far-rightists who attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 reminds us where such “thinking” can lead. Segnit concludes that modern conspiracy theory – notably the QAnon fantasists of a powerful cabal o f c anniba l ch i l d mole s t e r s who p l o t a g a i n s t Donald Trump – draws on ancient antisemitic tropes. It seems that you can’t keep a bad conspiracy theory down.
Democracy is under threat from rational intellectual actors too. Plato Goes to China by Shadi Bartsch, reviewed by Rana Mitter, shows how Chinese academics mine the Greek and Roman classics to make the argument for the superiority of their country’s system over liberal democracy. Deploying Plato’s arguments against rule by the ill-educated many, Party scholars exalt the fusion of Confucianism with communism. Others, like Pan Wei, an academic at Peking University, make the more interesting case that “the main scientific achievements of ancient Greece were obtained after the decline of Athenian democracy”. Nick Holdstock’s review of the Uyghur poet Tahir Hamut Izgil’s memoir of China’s genocide of his people, Waiting to Be Arrested At Night, puts the alternative case that Xi Jinping’s Platonic republic is no paradise.
MARTIN IVENS
Editor
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2
3 CULTURAL STUDIES NAT SEGNIT
5 HISTORY
6 LETTERS TO THE
EDITOR
LAURA KOUNINE
Doppelganger – A trip into the mirror world Naomi Klein. Conspirituality – How New Age conspiracy theories became a health threat Derek Beres, Matthew Remski, Julian Walker. Jewish Space Lasers – The Rothschilds and 200 years of conspiracy theories Mike Rothschild
Witchcraft – A history in 13 trials Marion Gibson
George Orwell, Just Stop Oil, Language and the brain, etc
7 HISTORY
8 CLASSICS
10 MEMOIRS &
BIOGRAPHY
14 ARTS
16 FICTION
18 POETRY
SIMON JENKINS
JERRY TONER RANA MITTER
How the Country House Became English Stephanie Barczewski
Pax – War and peace in Rome’s golden age Tom Holland Plato Goes to China – The Greek classics and Chinese nationalism Shadi Bartsch
NICK HOLDSTOCK
NORMA CLARKE HAROLD SCHECHTER
ERIN E. TEMPLETON
Waiting to Be Arrested at Night – A Uyghur poet’s memoir of China’s genocide Tahir Hamut Izgil; translated by Joshua L. Freeman Father and Son – A memoir Jonathan Raban Larry McMurtry – A Life Tracy Daugherty. Pastures of the Empty Page – Fellow writers on the life and legacy of Larry McMurtry George Getschow, editor Taking Things Hard – The trials of F. Scott Fitzgerald Robert R. Garnett
COLIN GRANT LUCY DALLAS JONATHAN DRUMMOND The Effect Lucy Prebble (National Theatre) Good Omens (Amazon Prime Video) Mark Cavendish: Never enough (Netflix)
LILY HERD PHILIP WOMACK ANDREW MOTION
Chimera Alice Thompson Prophet Helen Macdonald and Sin Blaché The Seventh Son Sebastian Faulks
OLIVER HERFORD
The Poems of Browning – Volume Five: The Ring and the Book, Books 1–6, and Volume Six: The Ring and the Book, Books 7–12 Robert Browning; Edited by John Woolford, Daniel Karlin and Joseph Phelan
19 POEM
JOHN KINSELLA
Hymn to a Caspian Tern
20 PHILOSOPHY
RICHARD LEA MARY LENG
The Experience Machine – How our minds predict and shape reality Andy Clark A Philosopher Looks at Science Nancy Cartwright
21 ANTHROPOLOGY
22 HISTORY
24 IN BRIEF
26 THEATRE
T. H. LUHRMANN
Unravelling a web – The Interpretation of Cultures by Clifford Geertz, fifty years on
PADRAIC X. SCANLAN CONRAD LANDIN Slavery, Capitalism and the Industrial Revolution Maxine Berg and Pat Hudson Backbone of the Nation – Mining communities and the
Great Strike of 1984–85 Robert Gildea
Notes from the Rehearsal Room Nancy Meckler. Crooked Plow Itamar Vieira Junior; translated by Johnny Lorenz. Windward Family Alexis Keir. What an Owl Knows Jennifer Ackerman. Le Rire ou la vie Alya Aglan, editor. Speak to Me Paula Cocozza. A History of the Roman Empire in 21 Women Emma Southon
KATHERINE CRAIK
Shakespeare in Elizabethan Costume – “Period dress” in twentyfirst-century performance Ella Hawkins. Performing Restoration Shakespeare Amanda Eubanks Winkler et al, editors
27 AFTERTHOUGHTS
KIERAN SETIYA
Frivolous and profound – philosophy, fiction and fun
28 NB
M. C.
Tolkien’s busy half-decade, Kamila Shamsie et al on Instagram, The TLS in Literature, More London Magazines
Editor MARTIN IVENS (editor@the-tls.co.uk) Deputy Editor ROBERT POTTS (robert.potts@the-tls.co.uk) Associate Editor CATHARINE MORRIS (catharine.morris@the-tls.co.uk) Assistant to the Editor SARAH HUGO-SPINKS (sarah.hugo-spinks@the-tls.co.uk) Editorial enquiries (queries@the-tls.co.uk) Managing Director JAMES MACMANUS (deborah.keegan@news.co.uk) Advertising Manager JONATHAN DRUMMOND (jonathan.drummond@the-tls.co.uk)
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TLS
SEPTEMBER 8, 2023
