It did and I didn't care. I had in my hands two books containing some of the greatest prose writing of any century by any writer. Pushkin's art was his combination of magic realism with social reality in the early decades of the 19th century. He was dedicated to preserving what he called the Russians' "vivid manner of expression and their sly wit." Read Pushkin – his poetry, prose, journalism and essays – and you will see how people lived and worked in 19th century Russia, not how the revisionists would later portray it.

Pushkin died in 1837, eight years after the great English poet WILLIAM BLAKE went to his grave, leaving behind, like the Russian, some of the greatest social poetry ever written. It was Blake, who questioned the role of the people who seek to rule, in much of his work – particularly in his unfinished drama on Edward the Fourth.

Blake and Pushkin are relevant today as the Christian World wages war on the Muslim World on the pretext of destroying terrorism and our ministers and senators apply the spin to the social reality. Revisionism has now become a disease in modern literature, journalism and writing. In Ireland it has become an art form.

So it is a rare treat to find A WORLD OF FINE DIFFERENCE by ADRIAN PEACE (UCD) [full review] – a book that actually manages to cut through all the revisionist mythology to tell the true story of a coastal farming and fishing community struggling to survive in a modern Ireland that sees no place for small peripheral villages clinging to mutual aid, co-operation and the weird notion of community solidarity.

Sadly Peace's excellent study has been ignored. Instead much has been made of THE MAKING OF THE CELTIC TIGER by RAY MACSHARRY AND PADRAIC WHITE (MERCIER PRESS). It is hard to know whether it is fiction, revisionism or social history. KIERAN ALLEN'S THE CELTIC TIGER (MANCHESTER) is the book you need to read if you want to know the social reality behind Ireland's economic boom. Well researched and thoughtfully written, Allen tells it as it is.

Mac Sharry, a former deputy prime minister, and White, a former CEO of the Industrial Development Authority of Ireland, would do themselves a power of good, for their future careers, if they took a look at BARRY CUNLIFFE'S FACING THE OCEAN; THE ATLANTIC AND ITS PEOPLES (OXFORD).

The story of the peoples – Celts, Bretons and Galicians – who migrated to the Atlantic fringe, this is real history going back 8,000 years, told through the eyes of an archaeologist who has read the bones and studied the artefacts. This is our story and it makes interesting reading especially to those in power, particularly in Brussels and Strasbourg, who believe we cannot be self-sufficient on the Atlantic fringe. And to put Cunliffe's mighty tome into perspective take a look at JOHN HAYWOOD'S THE HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE CELTIC WORLD (THAMES AND HUDSON). Where did we come from and how did we get here? This beautifully crafted book will show you, especially if you are an fascist with delusions of racial superiority!

Cunliffe argues that the people who went to the edges of the world knew what they were doing. They were seeking a better diet. The coastal areas, rivers and swamp lands promised a more nutritious bounty than the forests and mountains of central Europe and Asia, as the men hunted every manner of beast and fowl and the women gathered herbs, berries, leaves and seeds.

ELIZABETH SOMER'S THE ORIGIN DIET (HOLT) describes why the Celtic tribes were lean and mean, capable of travelling long distances despite the dangerous terrain and lived longer than we are often led to believe. Somer argues that a Stone Age diet will reduce the risk of heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, cancer, osteoporosis, reverse bone decay and loss, increase energy and keep depression at bay.

This is knowledge we have lost because of our ignorance and prejudice, and our modern, civilised, superstition towards the wise ones, the Shamans essential to the survival of every tribe.

In SHAMANS THROUGH TIME (THAMES AND HUDSON) editors NARBY and HUXLEY present a rich collection of writings by anthropologists and others. Shamanism has always been seen as a different world view – out of step with the civilised world – until recently when the pharmaceutical corporates began to realise that shamanic healing is based on a rich knowledge of plants.

The Shamanic world has always seen the Earth as one, with everything dependent on everything else. This is a view shared by environmentalists and ecologists, but it was a scientist, JAMES LOVELOCK, who proposed a scientific theory that the scientific world could accept.

He called it Gaia and in HOMAGE TO GAIA (OXFORD), a kind of autobiography, he explains how it all came to pass.

Now all this knowledge is making us realise we must come up with new political paradigms to protect the Earth and devise social solutions to the problems we have caused with our destructive behaviour. CHELLIS GLENDINNING once wrote a book called My Name is Chellis and I'm in Recovery from Western Civilisation, in which she argued that "in western culture, we live with chronic anxiety, anger, and a sense that something essential is missing from our lives, that we exist without a soul."

An eco-psychiatrist, she has followed this with OFF THE MAP (SHAMBHALA), another personal report on the world we live in, this time on the impact imperialism and globalisation are having on our lives, and why we must challenge it.

To the ignorant that challenge is primarily an angry one on the streets of Brussels, Seattle, Genoa and other places. Those who think that should seek out a copy of DO OR DIE. Now in its ninth edition this Brighton, England based annual book is arguably the best voice from a movement that now has many names. The Do or Die Collective keep it simple. It is about ecological resistance. In the same vein is DAYS OF WAR, NIGHTS OF LOVE from the CrimethInc Workers Collective in Atlanta, USA. And if you want to know what really happened in Genoa get ON FIRE, which contains sixteen essays explaining why it happened and why it will continue to happen. Read Pushkin too. He also knew.

Do or Die is available from: Prior House
6 Tilbury Place
Brighton
BN2 2GY
Email Do or Die
£6 an edition.

Days is available from:
CrimethInc HQ
2695 Rangewood Dr
Atlanta GA 30345
for $8.

On Fire is available from:
Active Distribution
BM Active
London WC1N 3XX
or
AK Distribution
PO Box 12766
Edinburgh EH8 9YE
Email AK
for £4.