My Country, Right or Left

This is a collection of George Orwell’s essays and other writings, from when he was a journalist during WW2. I never realised before what a young man he was – he died at 42 after years of TB. His books have a solid kind of wisdom about them which made me assume he was an older man. His essays, however, betray that like everyone else, he was a man of his time, with only the amount of knowledge and understanding that his age and experience could give him.

There’s quite a few interesting tidbits here – a review of Mein Kampf, a discussion of the Indian freedom issues (with a fair few mentions of Ghandi), some descriptions of being an air raid warden in London. There’s some early discussion about American Imperialism and the growing anti-American feeling in Britain, which is interesting, as well as some views on the impossibility of using peaceful solutions in a violent world (pre-Martin Luther and the exit of the Brits from India, of course!) There’s diary excerpts and letters as well, plus a short autobiography. It’s only one of four books of essays (I picked it out of a box of second hand books) but it’s an interesting one, from a man who did a lot in his short life.