Gradening vital to British economy

    Acknowledging the contributions of gardens to our mental and physical wellbeing and often the economic benefits are often overlooked, economic historian Roderick Floud steers to put it right in his latest book “An Economic History of the English Garden”.  This is the first book to question how much gardens and gardening have cost, and…

Three women’s sexual desires

  Lisa Taddeo 39-year-old from New Jersey, spent eight years  talking to three American women about sex with the aim of registering “ the heat and sting of female want so that men and other women might more easily comprehend before they condemn”. Lisa Taddeo’s three real women’s desire focusing on woman’s “Fifty Shades of…

Why America gave up on Free Markets

Economist Philippon uses detailed evidence to argue that  far from being the home of the free market competition, the US today has less competition than the much maligned EU, particularly in its products markets which are riddled with monopoly and monopsony. Declining competition has raised profits, depressed wages, weakened investment and undermined productivity growth. The…

Age of Robots: How automation control our work, wealth and welfare

Mr Bootle the chairman of Capital Economics argues that the automation and advances in AI will be a huge positive influence in our lives in the coming future and economic effects of artificial intelligence may not be as different from those of previous technological transformations as many suppose, that the speed with which the changes…

Blackouts triggered by hackers causing global chaos

The chilling conclusion to be drawn from reading Andy Greenberg’s new book Sandworm, on state-sponsored cyber-hacking as we are at war, but not as have known it but all big powers are involved and the potential for cataclysm is great as the hostilities are taking place in real time, undermining a system near you. Democracy…

Clinton snubs Thatcher

According to Hillary Clinton’s latest book  “Margaret Thatcher did not deserve a place in the book about history’s gutsiest women because she failed to make a positive difference for others” The former first Lady is touring the UK promoting  “ “The Book of Gutsy Women: Favourite Stories of Courage and Resilience” , which she co-wrote with…

Cheesemonger’s odyssey

The Great universal connects agriculture and climate to trade and exchange to traditions and cultures to identity and politics. Ned Palmer’s A Cheesemonger’s History of the British Isles, is a canon of food-centric histories begun with Mark Kurlansky’s Cod (1997). How we feed ourselves can tell us as much about who we are and where…

Laura Mulvey the critic who coined “Male Gaze”

Laura Mulvey, 78-year-old academic  coined the phrase “Male Gaze” and almost 45-years-ago ignited a generation of feminists with her concept in 1`975, to describe the dominant assumption “ Sexual imbalance”  in Hollywood that the perspective film-maker and view is male, and how it strategically positions men as spectators and women as objects,  is now reaching…

Jim Simons an enigma

Jim Simons who is worth $23bn is the greatest money maker in modern financial history, no other investor neither Warren Buffett, Rau Dalio, Steve Cohen, Peter Lynch, or George Soros can touch his record. Since 1988, Renaissance’s signature Medallion fund has generated average annual returns of 66 per cent and earned profits of over $100…

Epic story of the Jacobites

The story intrigue, corruption, betrayal and espionage of how the failure of Jacobites to restore the house of Stuart to the British throne, change the course of history. The book brings to life by spanning lives of mercurial Viscount Bolingbroke and stiff Lord George Murray to the half-mad Charles XII of Sweden and the suave…