Brazil’s Workers Party is smarting after losing its president through impeachment, accusing its enemies of mounting a coup. It would be better off engaging in stringent self-criticism and renewal, as it is still the country’s best bet for much-needed progress…
The optimism that attended the ‘Arab Spring’ of 2011, and the inflated hopes invested in youth and social networks, have fallen away, replaced by a realisation that autocratic forces, particularly if they can buy military support, still have a future…
Home computing and word processing are now so taken for granted that it’s hard to recreate how big a deal their first appearance was. One writer compared the cost of his device to his daughter’s school fees. Another had to…
The last book from the late German sociologist Ulrich Beck offers a grim prognosis for our future as a society, with traditional political institutions helpless before the power of capital and the reactions of right and left devoid of intellectual…
To the extent that Russia’s project of joining the Western developed world has failed, and it has failed, its search for a distinctive world stance appears urgent; the paradigm of a united state and church, defined against a decadent, liberal…
Philosophers had interpreted the world, but the point was surely to change it, Marx asserted. But with socialist change seeming to lead to disappointing or even frightening results, many twentieth century intellectuals turned Marx’s dictum on its head, seeking refuge…
The figure of the Polish-born historian Lewis Namier is at the centre of an entertaining and hugely informative new study of intellectuals and of practising historians ‑ not always a synonymous set ‑ in the post-1945 atmosphere of the Cold…
The British Labour Party is in deep crisis, with the majority in the constituency parties, many of them recently joined-up members or supporters, strongly in support of new leader Jeremy Corbyn while the majority of the party’s MPs are equally…
Palestine was once the hub of ideas, goods and people circulating through West Asia and North Africa: as a Bethlehem professor reminded us, the ancient caravan route used to pass nearby. Now he cannot even travel the twenty minutes to…
Empirical research has been employed in pursuit of moral goals, by demonstrating that a cultural practice is harmful to its victims. But should scientific evidence by accorded more weight than moral principles, for example the principle of the equality of…