Tribune – Comment, news and reviews from Britain's democratic left

Winter Soldier Iraq and Afghanistan: Eyewitness Accounts of the Occupations
by Iraq Veterans Against the War and Aaron Glantz
Haymarket Books, £9.99

LAST year more than 200 young American men and women came together just outside Washington DC to publicly testify about their personal experiences of the occupation of Iraq (despite the title, Afghanistan features very little). Based on the Vietnam Winter Soldier hearings in 1971, veterans presented oral, photographic and video evidence about the ever-changing rules of engagement, racism and dehumanization of the enemy, gender and sexuality in the US military, the corporate plunder of Iraq and the crisis in veteran health care. This book includes 54 emotional testimonies from those hearings, highlighting how the atrocities committed by US troops are not down to “a few bad apples” but are widespread and systematic.

Age of Experience
Ruthin Craft Centre

SIXTY, as we are often told, is the new 40, which is certainly appears to be the case for the 15 artists featured in Age of Experience. In our youth-orientated culture, age may carry respect, but is rarely seen as the time for new ideas, inventive thinking or for new or challenging work. In which case they should visit this exhibition that brings together the work of 15 “senior” makers

Robert Winston’s Musical Analysis
Radio 4

WE KNOW that Robert Winston is musical. He played the saxophone on BBC television to prove it. Now he turns his attention to the relationship between illness and creativity, focusing especially on musical genius. It was Aristotle, in a reckless moment, who gave currency to the idea that madness and genius were closely aligned and thus provided generations of Freudians with much to talk about. Indeed, Gustav Mahler personally consulted Freud about his sexual problems. The cure, apparently, was achieved at some cost to his creativity.

Secrets & Lies: A History of CIA Mind Control and Germ Warfare by Gordon Thomas
JR Books, £20

WHATEVER it is about mind control and secret agents, it’s a subject which continues to fascinate us. The three spectacularly successful Jason Bourne films are about a man breaking free of the conditioning which turned him into a killing machine. Such conditioning has been practiced for more than a millennia and Gordon Thomas’ latest book considers how the CIA investigated this area for its own purposes. But while the cover is glossy and the appendices voluminous, Secrets & Lies adds little to what we already know. And it is hampered by a curious structure.

Hard as Nails: The Graham Roberts Story
by Graham Roberts with Colin Duncan
Black and White Publishing, £17.99

BROADCAST football is genteel. Nanny is in the press box, nobody swears; calling a foul “dirty” might be actionable. So lunging tackles are “cynical”, stamping on knees “very cynical”. “He was fucking good” has become, quite wonderfully, “He did ever so well”!

Private Lives
Hampstead Theatre, London

THIS year, the Hampstead Theatre in north London celebrates its 50th anniversary. And quite right, too, as this is no ordinary venue. Set up in 1959 by director James Roose-Evans, this was a fringe theatre before fringe theatre even existed. Inspired by the heady air of New York community theatre, he decided to open a space that would stage new and experimental work.

Belching Out the Devil: Global Adventures with Coca Cola by Mark Thomas
Ebury Press, £11.99

COCA-COLA is simply an international franchise. Sure, it may control how the product is marketed, who its bottlers employ, where it is distributed and the uniform its distributors wear, but it has no responsibility for its bottlers around the world because it’s effectively a franchise. At least, that is Coca-Cola’s explanation for the unfortunate habit of finding dead trade unionists on its factory floors in Colombia. It also explains the regrettable use of child labour employed in getting the eight spoons of sugar you drink in each glass of the fizzy drink. This rather neat explanation also clarifies why Indian farmers have to fight each other at pumps for fresh water.

Spring Awakening
Lyric, Hammersmith, London

SPRING Awakening is unlike any other musical currently on the London stage. It has soul and grit and will convert die-hard non-musical fans to the genre.

Bodies by Susie Orbach
Profile Books, £10.99

PRACTISING psychotherapist and psychoanalyst Susie Orbach thrives on people like me. People who want to change their body image in some way. Since she wrote her first book, the classic Fat is a Feminist Issue in 1978, which brought a new wave of thinking to our dysfunctional relationship with food – ie, eating for reasons other than hunger – she has rightly been deemed an authority on the subject. So much so that she was sought by Diana, Princess of Wales, for assistance with her own problems.