Essays
Jan 23rd 2015
It was 1930. Winston Churchill was a 55-year-old Conservative Party politician who had been a member of parliament for three decades. He had eventually risen to the position of chancellor of the exchequer six years earlier but, in the peace and prosperity of the 1920s, had done a terrible job.
Jan 22nd 2015
I remember that a friend of mine in California sent me a heads-up on the 17th of December saying that the USA and Cuba were about to free some of their prisoners in a gesture of better times to come. But as everyone now knows, it wasn't just a mere prisoner exchange.
Jan 22nd 2015
For those who enjoy debunking the reputations of national heroes, there can be few softer targets than Winston Churchill. The phrase “flawed hero” could almost have been invented to characterise his long, wilfully erratic career.
Jan 17th 2015
The American philosopher Richard Rorty once wrote that academe's obsession with theory creates a 'shibboleth' in the university system, sheltering and confining its debates and polemics from the public sphere.
Jan 15th 2015
This year the UK’s biggest poetry award, the TS Eliot prize, has gone to David Harsent for his 11th collection, Fire Songs.
Jan 7th 2015
Pulitzer Prize winning author Lawrence Wright has just published a thrilling, compulsively readable account of the 1978 Camp David accords titled Thirteen Days in September: Carter, Begin and Sadat at Camp David.
Jan 7th 2015
Marcus Aurelius (121-180CE) was emperor of Rome at the height of its influence and power. One can only imagine the pressures that a person in his position might have experienced. The military might of the empire was massive, and much could happen in the fog of war.
Jan 5th 2015
Periodically we hear the anguished voices of sensitive aesthetes lamenting the deplorable and degraded state of contemporary art.
Jan 1st 2015
As the end of the year approaches, we reflect on the past year and make resolutions for the one ahead, celebrating the transition between old and new.
Dec 31st 2014
What do James Taylor and The Beatles have in common with the Head of the National Institute of Health?
Dec 30th 2014
Our poor old world lurches from crisis to crisis:
Ebola. Ferguson. Syria. ISIS.
So New Year’s most welcome. Let’s start again
With peace on earth and goodwill toward men.
Dec 26th 2014
I am a member of the Lotos Club in Manhattan, a literary club celebrated for having Mark Twain as its most famous member. Apparently, he had spent many happy hours with fellow members there in his declining years.
Dec 21st 2014
The holiday season is always a good time to take stock of the year just past and see what we might anticipate in the 12 months to come. In the case of Pope Francis, it is fair to say that a great deal went well.
Dec 20th 2014
The day went something like a Keystone Kops comedy from the silent movie era.
Dec 18th 2014
Pope Francis has opened the Pearly Gates to Blue Heelers.
Dec 18th 2014
William Shatner is daring to go where no author has gone before.
The original Star Trek captain is using modern technology—Kickstarter—to fund a campaign to publish and market a new book.