This was a book both provoking and thought-provoking. I'm both an unreconstructed leftist and a tiers-mondiste (having lived much of my adult life in developing countries) and Clive James is an unapologetic cheerleader for the West. He's also a great writer, and a lover of books.

Richard Mitchell once wrote that truly good books are those that make you look up from the page and ponder what you have just read. I did this repeatedly with Cultural Amnesia.

James understands nuance and complexity, being a nuanced and complex writer himself. His best essays in this book were the ones about fellow critics, such as Reich-Raniki. I also enjoyed how his essays started off centered around a particular person but went off on interesting tangents such as the history of the tango.

I found it difficult to identify with the primacy that James gives World War II in this book. I believe that this is probably because I was born in 1968, and it is probably my loss rather than James', but there were many times where I could see his discussion covering what was becoming very familiar ground about whether the intellectual in question had been sufficiently against fascism or sufficiently against Soviet communism. I was also disappointed in his facile Islamophobia (he quotes approvingly from O. Fallaci, C. Hitchens et al and seems to accept them at face value, while being quite critical of someone like Edward Said). I also thought it was amazing that he managed to ignore leftists who didn't commit the "being too pro-Soviet" sin such as Chomsky, who in spite of being ignored by James, had an unmistakeable impact on 20th century thought.

Overall, however, this book taught me an incredible amount about the 20th century and some of the amazing people it contained. I plan to purchase this book at some point so that I can browse it whenever I like and re-read my favorite essays. ( )

How do you define your humanity, your worth and the meaning of the good life? Did the last book you read, the last poem heard, the choir on Classic FM, the last serious piece of reportage in the newspaper make you think, widen the space for thought, help you engage more as a citizen? Did you make a note of the words that hit a spot? Remember to look that book up when next in the library, wonder what that old book of essays would be like you came across in the second hand bookshop. Perhaps as you get older do you see a pattern in what moves you in music, what is good writing and which political ideas increases the possibility of greater freedom of expression and those that close the creative spaces down?

One way to describe this book is to see it as Clive James 40 years exploration to make sense himself, his work and the world around him through works of the well-known, forgotten, cut-short or bogus mainly western intelligentsia. These are over but not confined the past 150 years. He also throws in 20th century film stars, fashion designers, TV broadcasters, jazz musicians and reporters. The format is over 100 individual pen-sketches grouped in alphabetical order of individuals that have aroused his interest with as sentence, comment, or thought and been inked over the years in his journal. From these seeds grows an essay that critically reveals more about the idea or the character or the context but done in his usually witty light foxtrot prose. Knowing that nothing worse then a judgement on writing style not seem here are three extracts.

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I finally finished this tome of 852 pages-not including the index. I think that I have been reading it for about a month or more. James lists alphabetically the various authors and politicians that have made an impression on him and their contribution to the history of the 20th century. His subtitle to this book is Notes in the Margin of My Time. I was impressed at how he found some of these people as they seemed very obscure to me. On further reading, you can see the themes that are very important to James. World War ll and the rise of antisemitism and the senseless destruction of the Russian people by successive Soviet governments are the two that James comes back to in most of the biographies. James does digress in many of his biographical descriptions touching on a wide variety of topics.His selection of people is interesting and on further reflection, covers European culture but is not representative of American society or women's voices. Still, very interesting and worth reading-when you have time! ( )

You feel much better educated after reading this book, yet only too woefully aware of the gaping holes in your education (well, I did anyway!). Clive James runs through a list of 20C figures who give you hope for humanity, while also reminding us about how much we need to be reminded of why we need them. A tour-de-force and a pleasure to read. ( )

A collection of insightful but snobbish essays, mainly about personalities from the 20th Century, and mainly revolving around World War II and its implications. The essays' quality and content range from the genial, through the irrelevant, and into the irritating --James has a frustrating knack for driving the discussion towards completely unwarranted topics. I can't recommend it, although I enjoyed reading several of its pieces. ( )