Cover: Peter Campbell

CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS ISSUE

• Joanna Biggs
• David Bromwich
• Peter Campbell
• Alasdair Gray
• Eric Hobsbawm
• Thomas Jones
• Frank Kermode
• Mark Kishlansky
• Thomas Pavel
• Bernard Porter
• David Runciman
• W.G. Runciman
• Adam Shatz
• James Sheard
• Iain Sinclair
• Christopher Tayler
• Marina Warner
• Michael Wood

Contents

• David Runciman
  Is this the end of the UK?

• Letters
  Will Fyans, Henry Holland, David Ganz, John Morton, Anna-Louise Milne, Jackson Lears, Paul Davidson, Chris Purnell, Nigel Ganly

• Adam Shatz
  Mubarak’s Last Breath

• Peter Campbell
  At the British Museum: Renaissance Drawings

• Joanna Biggs

  • Things I’ve Been Silent About: Memories of a Prodigal Daughter by Azar Nafisi

• Christopher Tayler
  At the Movies: ‘Four Lions’

• Marina Warner

  • Melchior Lorck edited by Erik Fischer, Ernst Jonas Bencard and Mikael Bøgh Rasmussen

• Frank Kermode

  • The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ by Philip Pullman

• Michael Wood

  • The Wire created by David Simon
  • Treme created by Eric Overmyer and David Simon

• Bernard Porter

  • Knut Hamsun: Dreamer and Dissenter by Ingar Sletten Kolloen, translated by Deborah Dawkin and Erik Skuggevik
  • Knut Hamsun: The Dark Side of Literary Brilliance by Monika Zagar

• David Bromwich
  Short Cuts: Edges of Darkness

• Thomas Pavel

  • Searching for Cioran by Ilinca Zarifopol-Johnston
  • A Short History of Decay by E.M. Cioran, translated by Richard Howard

• Thomas Jones

  • Arctic Labyrinth: The Quest for the Northwest Passage by Glyn Williams
  • Franklin: Tragic Hero of Polar Navigation by Andrew Lambert

• Iain Sinclair
  The Colossus of Maroussi: In Athens

• Alasdair Gray
  Poem: ‘Naming Britain’

• James Sheard
  Poem: ‘The Strandperle Notebook’

• Mark Kishlansky

  • A Gambling Man: Charles II and the Restoration by Jenny Uglow

• W.G. Runciman

  • Parties and People: England 1914-51 by Ross McKibbin

• Eric Hobsbawm
  Diary: My Days as a Jazz Critic