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...

 

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...

 

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....

 

Among the Democrats

Christian Lorentzen

After two hours​ on the tarmac at LaGuardia Airport, the flight was cancelled and we were deplaned. I had been seated next to a former congresswoman who lost to another incumbent in 2022 as a result of redistricting, after decades in the House of Representatives. Like me, she was on her way to Chicago to attend the Democratic National Convention. The next morning she was due to have...

 

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...

 

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...

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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...

 

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...

 

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...

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’,...

Diary

Lucian Freud’s Sitters

Celia Paul

Lucian Freud​ resembled certain film directors – Ingmar Bergman, for example – in that the lead characters in his works influenced the way the creation took shape, often guiding it into entirely new territory. There is an unspoken understanding between the film director and the actor that their involvement isn’t permanent: the actor may be offered a more desirable part, or...

 

Camille Bordas’s ‘Material’

Edmund Gordon

Fiction​ about creative writing programmes is always vulnerable to accusations of navel-gazing. Camille Bordas has, however, provided her new novel with an alibi. The Material follows the staff and students on the ‘MFA in stand-up’ at an unnamed Chicago university over the last day of the autumn term. It’s a clever conceit, giving the eternal question about writing...

 

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...

 

Old Furniture

Nicholas Penny

The triumphalism​ of the great auction houses tends to conceal the fact that certain categories of chattel have crashed in value over the last quarter of a century, and none more so than ‘brown furniture’. Changes in lifestyle have played a part. An indoor pool or family cinema is now a higher priority than a library among those who can afford such things; dining is less formal...

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.

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Partner Events, Summer 2024

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