Kafka on Thames
The injustice done to British broadcaster Paul Gambaccini as part of the Yewtree investigation leads one to wonder if the presumption of innocence can survive in a legal system which permits the police and media to destroy a person’s reputation in advance of any trial.
Body And Soul
Ta Nehisi Coates contends that white supremacy is a force so fundamental to America that it is difficult to imagine the country without it. Marilynne Robinson argues that moral revival, though its results are never enough, is also central to the American tradition and that we should not despair.
Getting the Left on Track
A new book that argues that the way forward for social democracy is more state, more tax, more spending fails to convince. If these were recipes likely to be favoured by the electorate there would be social democratic governments thriving all over the Western world.
Truculent Priest
In a series of radical critiques published in the 1970s Ivan Illich questioned educational practice, managerialism and the medical profession. Though he could be arrogant, inconsistent and even plain silly, Illich had important things to say about modernity.
Capitalism’s Futures
Despite a long period of what has seemed to be constant crisis, predictions of the death of capitalism may still be off the mark. This is not by any means to say that it is in good health. We must address its pathologies, and this is a task that should not be left to economists alone.
The Road to Paris
Wind energy is now cost-competitive without supports with fossil fuels in several countries, and solar energy too is closing the cost gap. Partly as a result of these developments, global climate politics is more complicated ‑ but also arguably more positive ‑ than ten or even five years ago.
Take That
The bursting forth of user-generated content was supposed to dethrone the captains of the culture industry still languishing in dreary, elitist old media formats. Instead, much of what is reported as mass opinion on social media represents less a ‘democratic revolution’ than the niche cultural interests of a few hundred young underemployed knowledge economy workers.
Red Star Over China
Mao Zedong’s vision in the late 1940s was to replicate Soviet communism, whatever the cost for his people. The espousal of values of freedom and equality offered hope to war-weary citizens, but the new regime ran an intensely invasive and catastrophic tyranny from the start.
Bands of Brothers
The Third International, or Comintern, maintained for many years a vast international organisation none of its left-wing rivals could match. When the purges came in the 1930s, however, its members suffered to a proportionately greater extent than any other category.
The Others
Edward Said can be called the father of postcolonial studies, but it could be argued that his political commentaries were as important as his theories and that, more than a decade after his death, they are still relevant to the contemporary situation in the region of his birth.