The crisis of modernity
Reviewed by Shelley Walia
Collateral Damage
by Zygmunt Bauman
Cambridge: Polity. Pages 182. £14.99.
Collateral Damage as a term is not unique to only armed conflict. As argued by Zygmunt Bauman in his recent book Collateral Damage, it is also "one of the most salient and striking dimensions of contemporary social inequality. The inflammable mixture of growing social inequality and the rising volume of human suffering marginalised as ‘collateral’ is becoming one of most cataclysmic problems of our time."

Greatest Romances

Musical journey
Reviewed by Suresh Kohli
Naushadnama: The Life and Music of Naushad
by Raju Bharatan
Hay House India. Pages 356. Rs 599
Whatever comes out of the author's stable can be nothing but a mine full of authentic redeemed nostalgia: Carefully catalogued, nurtured and memorised. This work is no exception but, albeit, not without standard blemishes: full of self-aggrandizement and penned in a painfully tired, laboured style coupled with repetitiveness, though forgiven after the last page for the extent of informationcompiled, facts and events revealed "entirely from memory". Therefore, huge quotes ascribed by the author to various music maestros make many other purveyors of the subject question the authenticity. It can also be said at the outset that it is neither for a film writer/historian nor for a lay reader, only for those who live by the immortality of Hindustani cine music. It also gives a comprehensive account of latent rivalries and politicking.

From Sir Alex, with distrust
Reviewed by Rohit Mahajan
My Autobiography
by Alex Ferguson
Hodder & Stoughton/Hachette.
Pages 402. Rs 1,299
Sir Alex Ferguson, for 27 years the Manchester United manager and the club totem, rushed through his second autobiography last year after he retired. There's a supreme irony in this eagerness, for Ferguson was never particularly keen to share information with the media. Why did the crusty, menacing old manager open up so quickly? To give expression to the pent-up thoughts of 27 years, to take potshots at enemies, to justify and defend, and to make money?

Rebuilding a rainforest
Reviewed by Doug Johnston
White Beech
by Germaine Greer
Bloomsbury £25.
Germaine GREER planting some trees, is there a whole book in that? The answer is a resounding "yes" after reading this heartfelt, sharp and meticulously researched account of the author's decade-long efforts to rebuild a small corner of rainforest in her home country of Australia.





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