An exploration of Marcel Proust and Anthony Powell's greatest literary achievements. There are few writers about whom opinions diverge so widely as Anthony Powell, whose Dance to the Music of Time sequence is one of the most ambitious literary constructions in the English language. In Different Speeds, Same Furies, Perry Anderson measures Powell’s achievement against Marcel Proust’s celebrated In Search of Lost Time. The literature on Dance is a drop in the ocean compared to that on Proust. Yet in construction of plot and depiction of character, Anderson ranks Powell above him. How much do particular advantages of this kind matter, and why is Powell an odd man out in English letters? At once so similar and dissimilar, the intricate retrospectives of the two novelists on bohemia and Society, upbringing and mortality, relationships and personality, invite interrelated judgements. The closing chapters of Different Speeds, Same Furies reach beyond their handlings of time to chart the historical novel from Waverley to Underworld, and the breakthrough in epistolatory fiction of Montesquieu’s Persian Letters, held together by what its author described as ‘a secret chain which remains, as it were, invisible’.

There are few writers about whom opinions diverge so widely as Anthony Powell, whose Dance to the Music of Time sequence is one of the most ambitious literary constructions in the English language. In Different Speeds, Same Furies, Perry Anderson measures Powell's achievement against Marcel Proust's celebrated In Search of Lost Time. The literature on Dance is a drop in the ocean compared to that on Proust. Yet in construction of plot and depiction of character, Anderson ranks Powell above him. How much do particular advantages of this kind matter, and why is Powell an odd man out in English letters? At once so similar and dissimilar, the intricate retrospectives of the two novelists on bohemia and Society, upbringing and mortality, relationships and personality, invite interrelated judgements. The closing chapters of Different Speeds, Same Furies reach beyond their handlings of time to chart the historical novel from Waverley to Underworld, and the breakthrough in epistolatory fiction of Montesquieu's Persian Letters, held together by what its author described as 'a secret chain which remains, as it were, invisible'.

Combines literature and philosophy to explore whether and to what extent we can know the thoughts and feelings of others

A group portrait of six of the finest historians of the First World War In Disputing Disaster, Perry Anderson picks out from the highly charged historiography on the First World War one leading historian from each of the major powers that survived the conflagration: Fritz Fischer, famous historian of German war guilt; Pierre Renouvin, a disabled serviceman and preeminent authority on the conflict in France; Luigi Albertini, the Italian newspaper tycoon who, unique among scholars of the Great War, played a part in pitching his country into it; Paul W. Schroeder, the American expert on the system of Europe - an interstate relations and its breakdown in 1914; Keith Wilson, the one radical deviant from a patriotic consensus about Britain’s role in the outbreak of the fighting; and, from Australia (summoned into the war as a dominion), Christopher Clark, acclaimed author of The Sleepwalkers. Disputing Disaster offers a compelling analysis of the major competing versions of the genesis of the Great War; fresh light on the political background of its leading historians; and a novel synthesis of the determining pressures that brought the conflict to pass. Perry Anderson is emeritus in History at UCLA, and an editor at New Left Review. Recent work: Different Speeds, Same Furies, a comparative study of Anthony Powell and Marcel Proust.

The revolutionary upsurge of 1968-1975 jump-hopped continents with ease but finally petered out. What happened after is the subject of You Can't Please All. Tariq Ali recounts a life committed to writing and cultural interventions. An eyewitness in Moscow to the fall of the Soviet Union, he was caught up in the intellectual excitement that had gripped the country. In Porto Alegre, Hugo Chvez invited him to visit Caracas, and the two men developed a striking friendship. Post-2001, as a founding member of the Stop the War Coalition, he became a fierce critic of the War on Terror, visiting many US cities with surprising regularity to engage in debate and discussion, inaugurating a new phase of political activism. Evident in his work is the integral part politics plays in his life. He is one of the most sought-after socialist and anti-imperialist public intellectuals on most continents. Underlying the narrative is a chain of anecdotes, reflections, jottings and storytelling. The book explores his work for the theatre and film, as well as his fiction, including the acclaimed Islam Quintet. There are pen portraits of friends and comrades such as Edward Said, Derek Jarman, Richard Ingrams, Benazir Bhutto, Mary-Kay Wilmers, and the intellectuals who founded and relaunched New Left Review: E. P. Thompson, Perry Anderson and Robin Blackburn. The book also contains a moving family portrait, describing how his parents met and lived during the early years of Pakistan.

A unique reference book for all fans of Anthony Powell's 12-volume novel, A Dance to the Music of Time, which has become a literary landmark of twentieth-century writing. More than a simple glossary, Invitation to the Dance contains extensive Character, Book, Painting and Place indices, creating a magnificent database of Powell's imagination and England's cultural landscape. This is a masterpiece of 'extreme ingenuity' detailing over four hundred characters and one million words of Powell's lively fifty-year dance of fiction and fact. 'Hilary Spurling's exhaustive analysis of the novel's characters supplies a master-key for the reader of Anthony Powell.