Issue 162 Autumn 2026
Emer Nolan on a new biography of James Joyce; Wolfgang Streeck ponders the question of Europe’s future; Robert Gildea considers the fate of Jews in Vichy France; a new poem by Vona Groarke, the current Ireland Professor of Poetry; Maurice Earls discusses Daniel O’Connell’s insistence on the separation of church and state; Simon Blackburn on the Oxbridge philosopher and public intellectual Bernard Williams; Conor McCarthy on Stefan Collini’s Literature and Learning; Daniel Gordon on the tyranny of choice; Martin Tyrrell revisits Catcher in the Rye seventy five years on; Graham McCann on the centenary of Marilyn Monroe’s birth; Ian Cobain uncovers Whitehall covert operations; Deirdre Nic Chárthaigh on ancient Gaelic warriors; Joseph Rivera on envy; Ewan Fernie on Shakespeare as thinker; Steven Smith examines the enduring importance of Isaiah Berlin’s liberal vision; and Michael Ignatieff on captive minds.
In This Issue
The Marilyn Monroe Centenary
‘Please don’t make me a joke,’ she pleaded in her last recorded interview, although, by then, the portents were dark.
Joyce and Parnell
A large and ambitious attempt to shed new light on Joyce's work fails to convince.
Yes We Can! Or Can We?
Who is the Moses who will lead Europe? Marsh’s candidate is Germany. Not ideal, Marsh knows, but better than nothing, he seems to say.
Covert Operations
Investigative journalist Ian Cobain uncovers Whitehall’s secret efforts to manipulate the Fourth Estate.
Holding Quicksilver
Analytic philosophy has often been charged with failings, such as a preoccupation with trivia. Bernard Williams offered an inspiring refutation of such charges.
O’Connell and Liberal Nationalism
O’Connell believed in the separation of church and state. In 1837 he denounced traditionalist Don Carlos, fearing he would restore ‘that disastrous connection between church and state which for two centuries has plunged Spain into the deepest moral degradation’.
Make the Gruel Thick and Slab
A new, engaging study of Shakespeare’s tragedies opens up deeper, more general questions as well as way of thinking better and farther about the complex matter of living.
Myth-busting
It is not easy to challenge the Resistance myth in France, which has shifted from being military and patriotic to humanitarian and ecumenical. But this book does.
The Rise of Eng Lit.
A monumental treatment of the rise of English literature as a university discipline in Britain from the 1860s to the 1960s.
Anatomy of Envy
Playing with envy is like playing with fire. It just isn’t worth it and should come with a mental health warning.
Gaelic Warriors
An authoritative, accessible study of the evolution and persistent appeal of the Fianna, the warrior-band that included Fionn mac Cumhaill and his son, Oisín.
Rereadings 3: Contra Phony
It is as if Holden Caufield is talking to you directly, as his privileged confidant, enlisted in his war against phoniness.
Isaiah Berlin’s legacy
What’s alive and what’s dead in the thought of Isaiah Berlin? A new book argues there is plenty of mileage left in the arch fox.
Mass manipulation
Though manipulation is as old as Adam and Eve and the serpent, it has taken on a new salience in our time. Social media has democratised manipulation, putting techniques of persuasion and deception, once monopolised by large corporations and states, into the hands of ordinary people.
Tyranny of Choice
In recent decades, Ireland has experienced a profound transformation from a society shaped by religious and communal authority towards one defined by individual autonomy. Sophia Rosenfeld’s book serves as an excellent catalyst for rethinking this paradigm.