Customer Reviews

Not in My Name: A Compendium of Modern Hypocrisy

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

The best argument to read this book comes from the One Star Reviews here - what a babble! No arguments, just smear and hate, which is too prevalent in debate today. Why not read it and make your own mind up.

Is it true? That's the question you need to answer.
Well done Julie. My copy has been passed around a fair bit now and always gets people talking and ASKING QUESTIONS!

The title of this book spells out its thesis: that the chattering classes are a bunch of self-regarding thought police. It argues against the herd-mentality that pronounces judgment against lazy targets rather than making the effort to think out personally held and defensible opinions. It lambastes Saddam appeasers, reactionary so-called alternative comedians, anti-Americanism. The Catholic Church also gets a well-deserved kicking.

I'd be a hypocrite if I didn't say I relish this book. It fizzes along and skewers a gamut of modern hypocrisies, then grills them on the flames of its author's venom. Pay attention and you'll periodically cleanse your palate too by spooning choice morsels from the fruit salad of said author's own inconsistencies.

In conclusion: a call to arms for the thinking classes.

There are far too many books that preach to the converted. But the appeal of Not In My Name is that it doesn't take sides. Well, of course it does - nearly every page is crammed with superstrength opinions. But it certainly doesn't play it safe. Everyone who reads this book - left, right, gay, straight - will find their own particular hypocrisies glaring back at them. Like a good rant with the best kind of drinking buddies, while I certainly disagreed with Burchill and Burden more than a few times, I finished the book grateful for having my (green, lefty, white, middle class, straight) assumptions about the world challenged, and the evening - to stretch the metaphor - definitely finished with high fives outside the kebab shop. On some issues I came away with my own convictions stronger in defiance of theirs, but on others they convinced me the world isn't quite the way I might lazily have assumed it was.

"Once upon a time Julie Burchill was a smart, Soviet-supporting, left-wing, anti-war activist. She's a shell of her former self now, having turned into an anti-environment, pro-war Zionist. This book is documentation of her fall from sanity."

This is taken from a previous review that has given the book one star yet is based on political ideology rather than the quality of the book itself. And what a dubious ideology it is that equates "Soviet-Supporting" with being "smart"; having moved away from apparently supporting one of the most repressive regimes of the 20th century according to the reviewer makes her a "shell of her former self".

For "Zionist" see Jew.

Ironically this is exactly the type of character Burchill defecates all over in this book. Short, funny, and extremely waspish with a laser like focus on its targets this book is definitely one I will read again and again.

This is an excellent book. The chapter exposing the hypocrisy of the green/global warming movement is worth the cover price alone. The authors have put into writing the thoughts of the silent majority. Thank you for having the courage to say what the mainstream press won't publish.

At first glance this looked like my sort of book, an exposure of liberal hypocrisies by insiders who had 'seen the light'. What we have instead is a series of essays written in a 'jokey-blokey' style that range from female masturbation(!) to American foreign policy. The authors also show that they are not impartial to a spot of hypocrisy themselves: CMB is gay. He says that he much prefers the open 'gayboy' name calling of his football associates to the hypocrisy of liberals. However, he later criticises the former attitude.
People who recycle are also targets. If you live in Bromley, Bexley or Sutton you are not doing your bit, you are a hypocrite. This is because you are not only recycling more than others but are doing it whilst being better off as well!
The book does have one redeeming part that earned it a third star and that is the chapter on foreign affairs examining the lefts attitudes toward America and Israel.
If you want a detailed analysis of the modern left then try books by Nick Cohen or Andrew Anthony.

I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the writing - it's heartening to see that age has failed to dampen Julie Burchill's creativity. I was even more pleasantly surprised to find it was relativly free from the xenophobia, misandry and general gratuitous nastiness and bile that regrettably marred much of her earlier work.

Near-death experience? Found religion? Or perhaps it's just that her marriage has helped her sort out her "issues" with men - who knows? In fact, some of the very people she has a bone to pick with here are feminists - or rather, people who imagine they stand for women's liberation but whose ideas are, in reality, far from liberating. In one chapter, she deconstructs the phenomenon of the whole "it's okay to be fat" movement, which started as a plea for acceptance on behalf of plump and obese women, but ended up becoming just another way of making women feel insecure about their own bodies. I think she has a point. Is a statement like "real women have curves" any less a type of body fascism than saying "real women have olive skin" "or real women have blue eyes"? Or how about "real men have muscles"?

Later, she explores the resurgence of class prejudice in supposedly egalitarian 21st Century Britain. In the past I'd always considered Burchill's obsession with "class" to be a rather silly anachronism, but the examples she gives of the growing tendency to denigrate and ridicule members of the white working class are disturbing and have made me wonder whether she may be right after all. She suggests that declining levels of career satisfaction in "middle-class" jobs may be to blame.

She also takes a pop at environmentalism - not concern for the environment per se, rather the elevation of the aforementioned concerns into a full-blown ideology, and the bizarre contradictions this leads to. For example, Greens promote locally-produced rather than imported food as it means a lesser carbon footprint, but their liberal principles won't allow them to oppose mass immigration, which is none other than the "importation" of labour.

So what's not to like? Why only four stars? Well, mostly the fact that near on 50% of the text is penned not by Julie Burchill but by Chas Newkey-Burden, who, although he makes some valid points, tends to indulge in lazy and poorly-evidenced generalisations a bit too much for my liking and doesn't show the same inventive use of language as his co-author. The chapter on "international affairs" is not one of the high points, in my opinion - a bit too much preaching to the converted. Some of his social observations are mildly intriguing, however, and make you realise how tricky it is to pick your way through the minefield of political correctness in the modern world. He remarks on the selective deafness of white rap fans to the misogynistic and reactionary messages that permeate hip-hop. Another paradox he notes is that his supposedly pro-gay friends can be quite judgemental about his sexual lifestyle, whereas people he knows who are superficially homophobic actually tend to be more accepting. I don't have many gay friends, but in future I'll certainly be observing my own reactions carefully.

All in all, it's a good stimulating read, and deserves to reach a much wider audience than hardcore Burchill devotees.

This woman and her co-author deserve a medal for daring to say the unsayable and think the unthinkable...and in such a hilarious way, too. And how refreshing-and reassuring- to come across someone so unashamedly pro semitic in an age when it just isn't fashionable to be so. Good on ya guys

V.poor book. I wouldnt even bother taking it out from the library never mind buying it.
The sad thing is i was actually really looking forward to reading this...and then i did.

If the authors want to write a book on their own opinions about a range of subjects which they clearly feel passionate about, then fine, but please dont sell it as a 'compendium of hypocrisy'.
It is not particulary well written or humourous, it simply reflects some chips on the authors shoulders they really should have sorted out with professional therapy, or perhaps with friends, but certainly not in a book.

Apart from this book being the black pot calling the pot that calls the kettle black, black, it is pitfully poorly researched. You get a few personal anecdotes, a few urban myths and some plain ignorance (Sadaam Hussein was apparently getting nuclear weapons of the North Koreans....)

In summary, i commend the authors for their intial idea, and there the praise stops.
If you want to see hypocrisy for yourself, apart from reading this book i would simply pick anyone of the daily newspapers in Britain and flick through some of the articles and there you will find plenty of hypocrisy.
It is perhaps appropriate therefore that these authors are 'journalists' by trade.
Of course people are hypocritical in their views, we are afterall humans. Yes we should engage in more self-reflection to be aware of it but at the end of the day hypocrisy is inevitable.
Dont think that reading this book will rid you off it, it will simply either frustrate you to the very core, or you will simply agree with the authors forthright opinions which seem to be nothing more than common sense.

If either one of these is what you wish to gain from a book be my guest and buy it...if on the other hand you wish to come away from reading havent learnt something about life....maybe try the new Argos catalogue...

I could barely get past the first page. A load of old opinionated faff. I think we know who the hypocrites are, we need only look at the cover.