cover image The Outsiders

The Outsiders

John Pilger, Michael Coren. Salem House Publishers, $13.95 (128pp) ISBN 978-0-7043-2489-3

In 1983, Pilger, British Press Awardwinner, and Coren, journalist and broadcaster, interviewed on British television nine ""outsiders''politicians, artists, writers and political activists at odds with the status quo, and uncomfortable working through establishment channels. Among the more interesting are: Sean MacBride, former chief-of-staff of the IRA, lawyer, and co-founder of Amnesty International, who examines his moral and political philosophy; Martha Gellhorn, correspondent and author of several books, who recalls the Spanish Civil War and American Depression; and Wilfred Burchett, the first western journalist to enter Hiroshima after the atomic bombing, who talks about reporting on the Communists in Korea and Vietnam. But with no theme more specific than the stated one of the outsider to integrate the interviews, this collection, overlong and basically dull, leaves the reader unclear about the book's intent. November 6