c o n t e n t s a p r i l 2 0 1 2 • i s s u e 3 9 7

Editor Nancy Sladek Deputy Editor Tom Fleming Editor-at-Large Jeremy Lewis Senior Editor Jonathan Beckman Editorial Assistants Frank Brinkley • Tom Williams Contributing Editors Michael Burleigh Sara Wheeler • Philip Womack Advertising Manager Terry Finnegan Classified Advertising David Sturge Founding Father Auberon Waugh Cover Illustration Chris Riddell

The Literary Review, incorporating Quarto, is published monthly from: 44 Lexington Street, London W1F 0LW • Tel: 020 7437 9392 Fax: 020 7734 1844 • ISSN 0144 4360 © All subscription enquiries and changes of address to: Literary Review Subscriptions, FREEPOST RSJB-SUGY-ZKRA, Impakt MMD Ltd, 3-4 Pylon Way, Croydon CR0 4XX • Tel: 020 8683 7151 All advertising enquiries to: Terry Finnegan, Literary Review, 44 Lexington Street, London W1F 0LW • Tel: 020 7437 9392 Printed in the United Kingdom by: Henry Ling Ltd, at the Dorset Press, Dorchester DT1 1HD • Tel: 01305 251 066 Distributed to newsagents worldwide by: COMAG Specialist, Tavistock Works, Tavistock Rd, West Drayton, Middlesex, UB7 7QX • Tel: 01895 433 800 Distributed to bookshops by: Central Books, 99 Wallis Road, London E9 5LN • Tel: 020 8986 4854 Subscriptions: theliteraryreview@warnes.co.uk Editorial: editorial@literaryreview.co.uk www.literaryreview.co.uk • @lit_review Designed by Cog Design Literary Review is set in Adobe Caslon and Janet. The latter is a digitisation of an engraved typeface designed by the artist and typographer Reynolds Stone, and named after his wife.

Literary Review | a p r i l 2 0 1 2 2

f r om the p u l p i t 1 Thomas Marks f or e i g n pa rts 5 Dominic Sandbrook

Time to Start Thinking: America and the Spectre of Decline Edward Luce 6 Michael Burleigh

After the Arab Spring: How Islamists Hijacked the Middle East Revolts John R Bradley 7 George Walden

The Tree That Bleeds: A Uighur Town on the Edge Nick Holdstock 8 Brendan Simms

The War is Dead, Long Live the War: Bosnia – the Reckoning Ed Vulliamy 10 Roderick Matthews

The Meadow: Kashmir 1995 Adrian Levy & Cathy Scott-Clark 11 Jonathan Mirsky

China in Ten Words Yu Hua 12 Miranda Seymour

Keeping Up with the Germans: A History of Anglo-German Encounters Philip Oltermann l i t e r a r y l e g a c i e s 14 David Collard

Exorcism: A Play in One Act Eugene O’Neill 16 Andrew Hussey

Many Subtle Channels: In Praise of Potential Literature Daniel Levin Becker 17 John Sutherland

Monopolizing the Master: Henry James and the Politics of Modern Literary Scholarship Michael Anesko h i st or y 18 Frank McLynn

The Norman Conquest Marc Morris 20 Christopher Kelly

Empires of Faith: The Fall of Rome to the Rise of Islam, 500-700 Peter Sarris 21 Piers Brendon

A Dance with the Dragon: The Vanished World of Peking’s Foreign Colony Julia Boyd 22 Norman Stone

The Lost History of 1914 Jack Beatty 24 Alan Allport

Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II Keith Lowe