Reviews: 

“Amity and Prosperity is at heart a David and Goliath story fit for the movies. It has everything but a happy ending: bucolic setting concealing fortune and danger; poor but proud locals who’ve endured sequential boom bust cycles of resource extraction . . . tough, reluctant victim-heroes . . . and a courtroom drama, as a tenacious husband-wife legal team takes on the industry and the state . . . [a] valuable, discomforting book” —Jo-Ann Wypijewski, The New York Times Book Review

Speaker

Eliza Griswold is the author of The Tenth Parallel: Dispatches from the Fault Line Between Christianity and Islam, which won the 2011 J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize. Her translations of Afghan women’s folk poems, I Am the Beggar of the World, was awarded the 2015 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation. She has held fellowships from the New America Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, and Harvard University, and in 2010 the American Academy in Rome awarded her the Rome Prize for her poems. Currently a Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York
University, she lives in New York with her husband and son.

Please note: this event is now a day later that originally advertised because of late changes to speaker’s travel. 

Anjana Ahuja

Anjana Ahuja is a freelance science journalist and a Contributing Writer at the Financial Times, where she is best known for her regular opinion columns. She has also contributed to Newsnight and made documentaries for BBC Radio 4. Prior to that, she was a staff writer at The Times for 16 years.In 2010, Anjana co-authored Selected, a book on the evolution of human leadership. She is a current trustee of the charity Sense about Science and a former school governor. She has a PhD in space physics from Imperial College London.

Razia Iqbal

Razia Iqbal is one of the main presenters of Newshour, the flagship news and current affairs programme on BBC World Service.  She also regularly presents The World Tonight on BBC Radio 4. She was the BBC’s arts correspondent for a decade, covering arts and culture for radio and television news. She also presented Talking Books on BBC World TV: an in depth interview programme with leading writers. Razia has been a journalist with the BBC for nearly three decades, and has worked as a political reporter, and as a foreign correspondent in Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Most recently, she has covered the 2016 Presidential campaign in the US; the Turkish elections and travelled in India and Pakistan making programmes for radio and television. She was born in Uganda, Kampala and moved to London as a child.

Toby Mundy 

Toby Mundy is Executive Director of the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction. In 2000 he founded Atlantic Books, where he was Chief Executive and Publisher until 2014, when he left to start literary agency TMA Limited. He is also chair of trustees of Wimbledon BookFest, a registered charity; a partner at the management and communications consultancy Jericho Chambers and chair of the advisory board of The Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award.

Acclaimed British foreign correspondent and author Christina Lamb now tells the timely and inspiring story of a remarkable young hero: sixteen year-old Nujeen Mustafa. Born with cerebral palsy, Nujeen undertook a harrowing journey from war-ravaged Aleppo to Germany in all in a wheelchair. She tells the details of her experience for the first time in a memoir, Nujeen, co-authored with Christina Lamb.

In the context of Nujeen’s unimaginable journey, we will look at the course of the Syrian Civil War, the impact of bringing individual stories to the public, and action Western countries could take to bring urgent relief to the besieged population of Aleppo.

Chaired by Azadeh Moaveni (@AzadehMoaveni), former Middle East correspondent for Time magazine. She reported from throughout the region for much of the past decade, and speaks Persian and Arabic. Her books include Lipstick Jihad, Honeymoon in Tehran, and she is co-author, with Shirin Ebadi, of Iran Awakening.

Speakers (full panel announced soon):

Nujeen Mustafa (@NujeenMustafa) is a Syrian refugee currently based in Germany and author of the memoir Nujeen

Christina Lamb (@christinalamb) is the roving foreign affairs correspondent for The Sunday Times. She has been a foreign correspondent for more than twenty five years, living in Pakistan, Brazil and South Africa first for the Financial Times then The Sunday Times. She is the author of The Africa House, House of Stone: The True Story of a Family Divided in War-torn Zimbabwe, Waiting For Allah: Pakistan’s Struggle for Democracy, The Sewing Circles of Herat, My Afghan Years and co-author of I Am Malala. Her newest book Nujeen: One Girl’s Incredible Journey From War-Torn Syria in a Wheelchair is published by Harper Collins.

Rt Hon. Andrew Mitchell is the MP for Sutton Coldfield and Secretary of State for International Development.

Mina Al-Oraibi (@AlOraibi) is an Iraqi-British journalist and political analyst, a senior fellow at the Institute of State Effectiveness and a Yale World Fellow. She is a member of the Global Agenda Council on the Middle East and has written extensively on US and European policies in the Middle East, in addition to conducting several high profile interviews including with US President Barack Obama and Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi.

For March’s members’ BookNight, we are delighted to welcome an award-winning author and foreign correspondent specialising in the countries of the Mediterranean, John Hooper, who will present his new book The Italians, over an intimate dinner with Frontline Club members.

The Italians is the ideal companion for anyone seeking to understand contemporary Italy. Digging deep into the history, culture and religion, John offers the key to understanding everything, from their bewildering politics to their love of life and beauty.

Looking at the facts that lie behind the stereotypes, John sheds new light on many aspects of Italian life: football and Freemasonry, sex, symbolism and the reason why Italian has twelve words for a coat hanger, yet none for a hangover.

Guests will be expected to have read the book and be ready and willing to contribute to the discussion. This will not be a standard format Q&A but an in-depth discussion.

The evening will start with drinks at 7:00 PM, following by a sit-down dinner at 7:30 PM. We will get to know one another over starters before the introduction of the evening’s guest author. John will then make his presentation and open the floor to discussion.

The evening will be hosted by Frontline Club director, Pranvera Smith, and a founding member and senior correspondent at The Guardian and The Observer, Ed Vulliamy.

Menu £25 per person excluding drinks.

On Thursday 18th April at the Frontline Club, authors Irina Prokhorova and Oliver Bullough talked about their experiences of Russia which have informed the research and writing of their two very different books.

Prokhorova’s book 1990: Russians Remember a Turning Point charts the missing year after 1989 when the Soviet empire fell apart and before 1991 when the Soviet Union was formerly dissolved.

“The close study of this period showed that all genesis of new life, just grew out of 1990. With its best achievements and worst [ . . . ] my idea was to show [ . . . ] this point of growth, the potential of the society of which probably we still don’t know enough.”

Anne Applebaum, Pulitzer Prize winner and most recently author of Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-56 , who was chairing the event, said that it felt that on reading the book one of the most notable points was how teachers were inspired to be creative with their curriculums. Prokhorova responded:

“I expected to find it but I was amazed how many things have been created at that time [ . . . ] we always underestimate the creativity of our own society [. . . . ] Somehow started in this period the whole basis of new life was created.”

Irina Prokhorova

While Prokhorova‘s book charts the lives of both ordinary and elite Russians at the fall of communism through interviews and documents of the time, Bullough‘s book, The Last Man in Russia and the Struggle to Save a Dying Nation, follows the story of an Orthodox Priest named Father Dmitry who throughout the sixties tried to combat the alcoholism that was commonplace throughout Russia. Bullough said:

“He attempted, in a small way because he was one man and this is a very large country, to create an alternative community in which people could trust each other [ . . . ] His theory was – and I think he was right – that the nature of a totalitarian society is that it can only survive by breaking down the bonds of trust between individuals.”

Oliver Bullough and Anne Applebaum

“So many of the dissidents, Marchenko or Sakharov…they are authentic heroes. Cast iron, 100% astonishingly brave, wonderful people and when you read about them it is inspirational. Father Dmitry is as it turns out not quite like that. In a totalitarian society heroes are a vanishing small minority; most people have to compromise. For whatever reasons, to get ahead, to get married or to get a job or to get a drink – to get anything. And once you compromise it’s difficult to stop. That is why I wanted to write about him.”

Prokhorova added:

“They have to compromise to save their lives and their loved ones.”

In contrast to Prokhorova‘s optimistic view of society flourishing throughout 1990 and hopefully into the future, Bullough offered a different opinion:

“The protests against Putin are a sign of a growing society and people are beginning to trust each other in a way that they weren’t before [. . . . ] However, the damage that has been done by vodka is so awe-inspiring. The UN estimates that the population by the middle of the century will be 116 million – it’s currently 143million. That’s a drop of about the population of Canada.”

Prokhorova added later on:

“Liberating yourself from the most horrific regime is a very painful process. You have to do quite a lot of things: psychologically, intellectually, practically. It’s very difficult to create this social fabric, I can assure you, for 20 years I’ve been trying to do it. The whole idea of survival was an individual thing [. . . . ] You have to teach people and you have to teach yourself too. We need a span of time.”

To which Bullough voiced his concern:

“There is a risk that people will become disillusioned and leave. This is something that the Soviet Union didn’t have – that it was very difficult to leave [. . . . ] The book does end in a relatively upbeat way. I’m encouraged that the new Soviet generation is much more socially active than I think I realised.”

Listen to Irina Prokhorova on how the Russian government should approach society in the future:

Watch the full discussion here:

Rasha Qandeel, a presenter with BBC Arabic was joined last night by Lindsey Hilsum to discuss her experiences in Libya and her new book Sandstorm Libya in the time of Revolution.

Hilsum, a  International Editor at Channel 4 News, began by telling the audience the reason why she chose to write a book on the ‘bizarre’ dictator and the fall of his regime:

“One of the reasons I chose to write about Libya was because I felt like I sort of got it, I understood it, it wasn’t that difficult.”

She described with enthusiasm how it was one of the greatest times to be a journalist:

“It was about as good as it gets as a journalist, such fun, things are happening all around us, also quite often as a journalist people are trying to stop you finding out, these people were desperate for us to find things out, they were just so thrilled to have us there.”

Hilsum discussed personal accounts that she has written about in the book and gave an insight into why Gaddafi at the start of his 42-year dictatorship was loved by some:

“I think that one of the things about Gaddafi that is so interesting is that when he first came to power in 1969 lots of people did love him and that was because of the situation Libya was in, people thought that Gaddafi was their Nasser, and that was exactly the image he tried to portray.”

Despite Hilsum’s humorous anecdotes of asking a 17-year-old rebel fighter “does your mother know you’re here?”  She also talked of events such as the 1996 massacre of Abu Salim prisoners:

“I learnt that this was a massacre where 1270 men had been herded into a courtyard in the prison and gunned down.”

NATO’s involvement in Libya will always be controversial. Inevitably the conversation turned to the reasons for their involvement and Libya’s oil.  Upon discussing the casualties caused by the NATO strikes Hilsum expressed that she thought that there were far fewer casualties than Iraq or Kosovo and that the world was aware that this could turn into another Rwanda or Srebenica and the West had to act upon this.

Gaddafi’s vast, if somewhat strange, support for various groups that held anti-western sympathies such as the IRA, the Japanese Red Army and the Workers Revolutionary Party was all an attempt to overthrow the Western democracies. Gaddafi ploughed millions into Africa and was even titled the ‘King of Kings’ by traditional African leaders, money that Libya is doubtful to get back.

Hilsum ended the discussion making it clear that the future of Libya should be left to the Libyans to decide:

“In the end it is up to the Libyans, and if the secular parties do not get their act together and unite to make a proper political part that works, and the Islamic do, what are you going to do about it, It’s up to Libyans, I do feel that it is not for the West to intervene at this point.”

Speaking to a packed Frontline Club on 26th April, Channel 4 News’ International Editor Lindsey Hilsum shared a fascinating personal insight into the revolution in Libya last year that overthrew the regime of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi after 42 years in power.

In Hilsum’s words, Libya was the "only true revolution of last year – where the whole apparatus of state was overturned."

The challenge now faced by Libya is that of building a new state in the wake of a leader who deliberately undermined the country’s institutional development:

"The problem with Libya is that power is everywhere and nowhere," said Hilsum. "There are no strong institutions and no strong figures – and Libyans are allergic to strong political figures after Gaddafi."

Elections are scheduled to take place in June for a 200-member assembly that will form a new government and write a new constitution. But the creation of a new political reality in Libya will take years rather than months.

"Anyone who thinks you can go from 42 years of dictatorship to democracy overnight is dreaming," said Hilsum. "It’s an extremely rocky path ahead."

As if to prove the point, within hours of Hilsum’s talk, news emerged that the country’s interim ruling council had fired the cabinet – just five months after it took office.

But despite the immense challenges that Libya now faces, Hilsum firmly believes that whatever the motivation for NATO’s much-criticised intervention in Libya in March 2011, there is no doubt that it saved lives:

"I defy anyone who was in Benghazi that week to think that Gaddafi would not have come in and killed tens of thousands of people," she said.

Reading excerpts from her recently-published book, Sandstorm: Libya in the Time of Revolution, Hilsum spoke passionately about a Gaddafi regime, the brutality of which had been obscured by a decade of engagement with the West:

"We turned Gaddafi into a buffoon, and he was a buffoon, but we failed to acknowledge how terrible his regime was," she said.

Sandstorm was inspired by Tarek Ben Halim, a Libyan philanthropist and champion of democracy, who sadly died before he could witness the revolution.

It tells the story of many others like Tarek who in 2011 found the courage to challenge a regime that for 42 years had brutally crushed any opposition.

As well as shedding light on the 2011 revolution, Sandstorm also provides what Hilsum says is the first full account of the Abu Salim massacre in 1996, in which 1,270 people are believed to have been killed.

In one meeting recounted by Hilsum, a stooped, elderly man in a fez told her of the regular 600-mile journeys he made to the prison to deliver care packages to his brother-in-law. It was only after 14 years of such visits that the regime saw fit to tell him that his brother-in-law had long been dead.

It was these personal stories, told with humour and humility, that stood out from Hilsum’s talk.

There is much "weeping and quarrelling" to come in Libya, said Hilsum. But after four decades of oppression, there is also great hope.

Against a backdrop of growing discontent, and widespread allegations of fraud, Russia’s recent elections heralded Vladimir Putin’s re-election to the presidency. The man who many still saw as Russia’s de facto leader will now resume his tenure, four years after ostensibly ceding power to Dmitry Medvedev. 

In light of these developments a panel of experienced commentators gathered at the Frontline Club to assess the past, present and future of Putin’s Russia. The evening was chaired by Edward Lucas, The Economist’s Deputy International Editor, in discussion with Masha Gessen, a Russian-American journalist and author, and Bill Browder, an outspoken shareholder activist who was the largest foreign investor in Russia until 2005, when he was banned from the country.

Gessen, author of The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin, described Putin’s Russia as a mafia state in which large-scale corruption at the top relies on small-scale corruption at the bottom. She claimed that Putin “thinks the KGB is the best thing that was ever invented”, adding that she saw him as pleonexic – in that he suffers from the insatiable desire to have what rightfully belongs to others.

Browder agreed, describing his own experience as “the story of how bad things have got in Russia, and emblematic of the bare face of Russia from the beginning to the end.” He began to withdraw his money when he realised that all of his companies were hemorrhaging money to corrupt officials. A saga ensued in which Russian police seized his assets, took control of his companies and – amongst other things – conspired to reclaim $230m that Browder’s companies had paid in tax.

What followed has now become an infamous tale of state corruption and brutality. Sergei Magnitsky, the lawyer investigating matters on Browder’s behalf, was imprisoned and eventually murdered in custody. 

His is not the only case of this kind, as Browder and Gessen observed, but the unfailing bureaucracy of all involved led to the publication of an exact account of the events, written by Magnitsky, and a list of those responsible. Lucas described the Magnitsky list as “one of the most effective fires lit under the regime”, and Browder summarised the reasons behind its impact: 

“The people who committed these crimes didn’t do it because of religious intolerance, or ideological intolerance. They did this for money.”

Browder suggested that the regime was unsustainable, given the prevalence of events like this, but the panel recognised the inherent difficulty in ensuring a genuine transition of power. Gessen offered her own analysis of the regime’s ability to adapt and protect itself:

“With the whole reset campaign of the last 3 years, there were a lot of people who fell into Medvedev’s trap. The best way to think of Putin and Medvedev is of a president and a first lady: the first lady gets to reach out to people, and perform humanitarian gestures. That humanitarian gesture deceived a lot of people.”

Despite this, Gessen noted that the West is an important influence, even to the most corrupt Russian officials:

“More important than anything else, it’s the place where they keep their money. You can’t keep your money in Russia, there is always somebody better connected than you are.”

And, as the question and answer period drew to a close, Lucas suggested that Putin’s hold on power might begin to loosen if another disaster on the scale of the Kursk or Beslan were to strike:

“He handles these situations very badly. The people who’ve got a huge stake in the survival of the regime may wonder if they can keep it going for a few more years by pushing him downwards or sideways.”

Watch the event here:

By Olivia Heath

Award-winning journalist Jonathan Steele discussed his views on the war in Afghanistan and the changing role of the foreign correspondent on Tuesday night  at the Frontline Club.

“It was a life changing experience for almost everybody including myself. It was radicalising, invigorating and shocking because we saw that this was a different face of America that we had been bought up with.”

Steele talked to the audience about his first break in journalism after being accepted on a traineeship scheme at The Guardian: “Persistence, ambition and a little bit of luck –  in my case it was an enormous dose of luck, about 95 per cent.”

The Siege by Conor Cruise O’Brien

Israel/Palestine: How to End the War of 1948 by Tanya Reinhart

Israel and Palestine by Bernard Wasserstein

What Went Wrong by Bernard Lewis 

Six Days in June: Israel’s Fight for Survival by Robert J Donovan and the staff of the Los Angeles Times 

These seem rather inadequate. And the holes are obvious. So what should I be reading? What are the best books to help me get up to speed on the Isreali-Palestinian conflict and the simmering tensions across the Middle East?