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4 weeks ago | 
hastingsindependentpress.co.uk | Ernest Scheyder |Tim Barton
By Ernest ScheyderPublished by Ithaka, 2025, rrp £12.99REVIEW BY TIM BARTONAs the war in Ukraine gets ‘interesting’, And with Trump making bizarre attempts to ‘buy’ Greenland, with threats and menaces, in another plug for rare earth minerals, this excellent new book is very timely. The subtitle is ‘Lithium, Copper, and the Global Battle to Power Our Lives’.
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Jan 15, 2025 | 
hastingsindependentpress.co.uk | Ece Temelkuran |Tim Barton
By Ece TemelkuranPublished by Canongate, 2024, rrp £10.99REVIEW BY TIM BARTONCanongate have an imprint called The Canons, reprinting important titles. This book is a new edition of a 2019 bestseller, though given its release date it has no doubt had less exposure than it deserves.
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Nov 26, 2024 | 
washingtonstand.com | Joseph Backholm |Tim Barton
PODCAST November 26, 2024 28 minJoseph BackholmTim BartonDo you know the truth about Thanksgiving? Host Joseph Backholm is joined by Tim Barton, president of Wall Builders, to shed light on what the first Thanksgiving was actually like. Who were the pilgrims? They were not land-stealing English men like many history books make them out to be.
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Nov 20, 2024 | 
hastingsindependentpress.co.uk | Andreas Malm |Tim Barton
By Andreas Malm & Wim CartonPublished by Verso, 2024, rrp £25REVIEW BY TIM BARTONOn Monday 11 November, COP29 Azerbaijan began, in an authoritarian oil-state that is effectively a branch of BP’s oil empire, with the Azerbaijani government hilariously claiming green credentials. Their website claims that ‘Azerbaijan is committed to developing its renewable energy potential, which is an important part of the country’s plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2050.
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Oct 10, 2024 | 
hastingsindependentpress.co.uk | Hein de Haas |Tim Barton
By Hein de HaasPublished by Penguin, £10.99REVIEW BY TIM BARTONIn the current divisive cultural climate, this book is a great curative to what the author describes as ‘21 myths’ about migration. He tackles, first, the right-wing propaganda that migration is at an all-time high.
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Sep 26, 2024 | 
hastingsindependentpress.co.uk | Tim Barton
By Caroline LucasPublished by Hutchinson Heinemann, £22REVIEW BY TIM BARTONEx-Green MP Caroline Lucas sets out, in her new book, to suggest ‘how to reclaim our national story’. Reclaim it from what? Well, from ‘exceptionalism and imperial nostalgia’, which, however you cut it, has predictably led to the rise of dark forces claiming a rather toxic form of ‘patriotism’. She quotes Nigerian poet and novelist Ben Okri, who says that ‘nations and peoples are largely the stories that feed themselves.
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Aug 13, 2024 | 
hastingsindependentpress.co.uk | Tim Barton |Will Hutton
By Will HuttonPublished by Head of Zeus, £10.99REVIEW BY TIM BARTONIt is close to 30 years since Hutton’s most influential book, The State We’re In, first came out. In that book he argued that ‘altruism and the civilising values of an inclusive society have been sacrificed on the altar of self-interest, of choice, of opting out and of individualism’. Some reviews, such as David Aaronovitch, took issue with that as too simplistic, and as a sentence taken out of context it is.
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Jul 17, 2024 | 
hastingsindependentpress.co.uk | Quinn Slobodian |Tim Barton
By Quinn SlobodianPublished by PenguinREVIEW BY TIM BARTON‘Americans are deeply sceptical of once well-regarded institutions such as universities, the media and the public health system, and do not trust the functioning of democratic politics. The economy is characterised by entrenched inequality, and intense polarisation between the parties makes it all but impossible to address long-term problems such as climate change,’ says Eric Foner in the London Review of Books (4 July 2024).
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Jul 3, 2024 | 
hastingsindependentpress.co.uk | George Monbiot |Peter Hutchinson |Tim Barton
By George Monbiot & Peter HutchinsonPublished by Allan LaneREVIEW BY TIM BARTONThe first wave of ‘neoliberal’ ideology was influenced by a century-long tradition beginning with Charles Gide, and moving toward the present via Milton Freidman, Hayek and von Mises.
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Jun 5, 2024 | 
hastingsindependentpress.co.uk | Tim Barton
By Nick BanoPublished by Verso, rrp £16.99REVIEW BY TIM BARTONNick Bano is a barrister and has a different take on the causes of our current housing crisis than is usual. Economists tend to talk about ‘rent-gap’ theory, expecting actual rents to rise only if rental properties are improved, or to agree that a lack of housing stock is the problem.
