From the next issue

The Debate

Eliot Weinberger

Poor Don.​ He thought it would be an easy golf-cart ride back to the White House, rolling over the recumbent body of Sleepy Joe. Then the Dems pulled a switcheroo and suddenly he was faced with a middle-of-the-roader without much of a damaging paper trail, whose demeanour was the unlikely combination of tough prosecutor and warm human. Worse, she was a woman. And even worse, a woman of...

 

What is finance for?

John Lanchester

It is easy​ to misunderstand what contemporary finance is and does. Common sense, and the textbook, both say that finance is the business of moving money from A to B. There are times when money in place A, a saver’s bank account, say, would be usefully deployed in place B, a business needing cash to expand, or an individual wanting a mortgage to be able to buy somewhere to live....

 

Rachel Kushner’s ‘Creation Lake’

Brandon Taylor

Rachel Kushner​’s fourth novel, Creation Lake, shuttles between the story of Sadie Smith, a spy-for-hire tasked with observing Le Moulin, a radical environmentalist commune in rural southwest France, and the intercepted emails of Bruno Lacombe, a cave-dwelling local eccentric who serves as the Moulinards’ mentor and spiritual icon. You might expect this marriage between cool...

 

Bloody Jane

Mary Beard

In​ 1921, Jane Ellen Harrison, the maverick Cambridge classicist and celebrity public intellectual, was introduced to the crown prince of Japan when he came to receive an honorary degree from the university. She revisited this occasion a few years later in her memoir, Reminiscences of a Student’s Life. ‘If you must curtsey to a man young enough to be your grandson,’ she...

From the blog

After the Riots

Taran N. Khan

11 September 2024

The events of this summer, Bibi Rabbiyah Khan said, are a wake up call for the community: to overcome divisions and fear, and draw on the support of interfaith groups, local authorities and anti-racism groups. ‘That's what saved London – people stood up.’

 

Ancient India

Ferdinand Mount

The sun​ still sparkles on the sapphire sea at Mamallapuram. The shoppers and sightseers still dawdle along the harbour front, gawping at the astonishing sculptures carved on the rocks behind: the gods and goddesses, bare-breasted and smiling; the lions, water buffalo, cobras and, of course, elephants. Nothing much has changed since the seventh-century poet Dandin, the greatest Sanskrit...

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On Barbra Streisand

Malin Hay

There’s​ an old joke. ‘A man was choking to death in a restaurant and Barbra Streisand was sitting at the next table. She rushed over and did the Heimlich manoeuvre and saved his life. Next day the headline read: Barbra Streisand Takes the Food Right Out of a Person’s Mouth.’ Streisand repeats the joke in her autobiography, My Name Is Barbra, to explain why she felt a...

 

Mao’s Right Hand

Perry Anderson

Every modern revolution​ of significance, from 1789 to the present, has produced a diaspora. The exodus from Russia after the end of its ancien régime scattered minds of exceptional brilliance in the arts, humanities and social sciences across the West. In China, where the old order had a history thousands of years longer, and civil war preceded rather than followed the revolution that...

From the archive

Gloves on!

Anne Carson

So,your life. There it is before you – possibly a road, a ribbon, a dotted line, a map – let’s say you’re 25, then you make some decisions, do things, have setbacks, have triumphs, become someone, a bus driver, a professor of Indo-European linguistics, a pirate, a cosmetologist, years pass, maybe in a family maybe not, maybe happy maybe not, then one day you wake up...

Short Cuts

Kenya’s Crises

Kevin Okoth

Kenya’sgovernment is in crisis. In May, President William Ruto introduced a controversial new finance bill, which proposed higher duties on basic goods such as bread, vegetable oil and sugar, as well as an ‘eco-levy’ that would drive up the cost of sanitary towels and other items. Ruto said the taxes would raise a much needed additional £2 billion in government...

 

Fitzjames Stephen's Reviews

Stefan Collini

Every so often​, a periodical comes along that sets the pace for a number of years thanks to the decisiveness of its editorial direction and the quality of its contributions. In 1855 the arrival of a new weekly journal represented one such transformative moment. The Saturday Review addressed itself to ‘serious, thoughtful men of all schools, classes and principles’,...

 

On the Rule of Law

Frederick Wilmot-Smith

In November​ last year, the UK government’s signature policy on asylum seekers was judged unlawful by the Supreme Court. At various other points over the last twelve months, Israel’s Supreme Court declared the Netanyahu government’s judicial reforms invalid; the US Supreme Court was asked (but declined) to disqualify Donald Trump from standing for president; and the...

 

Doing it with the in-laws

Francis Gooding

Maurice Godelier’​s Forbidden Fruit is a small book about a big subject. It can afford to be short because, despite all the ink spilled and pencils chewed, what is known about incest and its prohibition can be summarised quite succinctly. The origin of the incest taboo is still a mystery, and though many theories have been proposed, few universal conclusions can safely be drawn; like...

 

Early Modern Espionage

Lucy Wooding

The life​ of a Tudor statesman could be a painful one. Even if dignified by a measure of moral integrity or, conversely, sweetened by the fruits of corruption, it still required long hours of unremitting labour. In the 16th century, when the political process rested less on institutions and more on informal networks and shared expectations, a regime was only ever a few steps away from...

Diary

Hoardiculture

Jon Day

WhenPossessed, Rebecca Falkoff’s cultural history of hoarding, came through the letter box, I put it on my desk next to a pile of other books, a tangle of wires left out after an unsuccessful search for a phone charger, a small pocket microscope, a broken reading light, a carrier bag full of travel adapters, a sheaf of loose papers, a selection of penknives, a pair of speakers, the...

Close Readings 2024

In our pioneering podcast subscription, contributors explore different areas of literature through a selection of key works. This year it’s revolutionary thought of the 20th century, truth and lies in the ancient world, and satire.

Read more about Close Readings 2024

Partner Events, Autumn 2024

Check back for seasonal announcements, including a lecture about a painting like no other at the V&A, screenings at the Garden Cinema and more.

Read more about Partner Events, Autumn 2024
Events

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