A Letter From The Editor

Contemporary Review, July, 2000

WE are pleased to announce that starting with this, the 277th volume of Contemporary Review, the size of the journal will grow by eight pages.

The new 64-page journal -- free from the intrusion and influence of advertising -- will allow us to give more space both to articles and to reviews.

The expansion in size, as well as the start of a web site (www.contemporaryreview.co.uk), reflects the fact that the editing, printing, and publishing of Contemporary Review is now done in Oxford. This increase in the size of one of the world's oldest journals is the first for many decades.

We have remained true to the basic idea of our Victorian forerunners. Contemporary Review continues to be a learned and serious but not a specialist journal.

We believe there is a continuing role for a journal that can present intelligent readers with substantial articles about the world we live in today.

Specialist journals with their forests of footnotes and walls of jargon exclude all but a few from understanding their well guarded territory. We hope that our readers can both learn from as well as enjoy our articles.

Our longest serving editor, Dr G. P. Gooch, whose tenure ran for the extraordinary length of almost half a century -- from 1911 to 1960 -- believed that Contemporary Review should concentrate on international and political affairs. As a distinguished historian and man of letters, he wanted these mixed with articles about history, literature and cultural affairs. The present issue shows how we have remained true to that mixture.

The present issue also shows how we draw writers from all over the world. Many have deep personal experiences of different countries and cultures and are therefore well able to address readers of an international journal.

In this issue, for example, we have authors from four continents writing about developments in the six inhabited continents of the world. Two academics in Australia, one from an English and the other from an Islamic background, write in the first case on a recent coup in Ecuador and in the other, about the relations between Australia and Asia. A Brazilian scholar, who divides her time between her native land and England, describes the economic developments in Latin America, while a Hungarian journalist based in Budapest and London discusses the role of waterways in the new Russian economy. An Irish librarian now working in Massachusetts recalls the attitudes towards England of a famous American diplomat and author.

In our occasional travel articles we stress the historical and cultural aspects of places: a Canadian, of Syrian heritage, writes about how Tunisia has been influenced by Spanish culture, while in another article a young German writer describes the Art Noveau buildings in Darmstadt.

We also try to have a lighter touch after the serious articles. In this issue some of the entertaining rhymes used in English advertisements of fifty years ago are recalled and they still provide gentle amusement.

Our reviews are as diverse as the articles. They range from a review about the man who established the basis of American foreign policy in the last half-century to one about the woman who changed the face -- and taste of English cooking. With the expanded size of Contemporary Review the review section, normally of sixteen pages, will be one page larger than the first Victorian issue. It also reviews many more books.

Past issues of Contemporary Review are increasingly of interest to students, scholars and authors. Some past issues are being advertised on the internet at $50 and $60 for a single copy. The journal can justly claim that it is both contemporary and collectible.

We receive requests all the time for information about past articles: only recently did an academic in Berlin want to know about articles by a German theologian in the 1920s while a publisher requested permission to reprint some of John Ruskin's articles from the 1860s. We are currently working with various educational services to provide past issues on the internet. Our website will give information about this.

It is our sincere hope that this expanded Contemporary Review -- one without any increase in price -- will bring you more enjoyment and more enlightenment. We should be glad to hear your opinions on any of the articles or reviews.

RICHARD MULLEN, EDITOR