One of Antonio Gramsci’s most compelling distinctions is between two kinds of political struggle. What he variously called the ‘war of manoeuvre’ or the ‘war of...
‘And yet, could the age of the conquering bourgeoisie flourish, when large tracts of the bourgeoisie itself found themselves so little engaged in the generation of wealth, and drifting so...
The Opposition is at a low ebb. Labour consoles itself for its third consecutive thrashing with the thought that at least its leader put up a good show and the Party was well-prepared and ran a...
The state of elementary, intermediate and higher education in America has been a serious cause for concern in recent years. Diverse groups and individuals have issued scathing reports on the low...
Despite the media’s unending stream of patriotic talk about ‘America’, one occasionally has a sense of the country’s disunity, its unmanageable extremes, the foreignness...
Bentley Gilbert is a historian well-equipped to strip off myths and expose facts. All his skills were needed here: during some seventeen years of ministerial life Lloyd George took a hand in five...
Politics is as much about losers as winners, which is why the defeated repay attention as much as the victors. The vanquished, moreover, are usually more candid. In their accounts the bruises...
As people struggle to work out what has been happening on the world’s financial and stock markets over the past few weeks, the two questions which seem to crop up most frequently are: why...
Give me chastity and continence, prayed the youthful Augustine, but do not give it yet. Perhaps the young Tony Benn, slithering up the greasy poll, made similar entreaties. For this, his...
In mid-August 1892, Hamburg was basking in a heatwave. Workers splashed around in the River Elbe, which reached an almost unprecedented 70°F. Then people started to go down with intestinal...
The history of thinking about political institutions and political behaviour has for two millennia oscillated between two opposed poles. Realists have seen politics in defensive terms: human...
Ariel Sharon is both hero and bogeyman: brilliant military tactician and rogue general, master both of the pre-emptive strike and of the cover-up, populist leader and – in the eyes of...
Of the various words which Gorbachev has used to describe his reforms, there can be no doubt which has had the most impact. Though perestroika (‘reconstruction’) conveys the intended...
As the Conference season ends and Parliament resumes, the Tories are in triumphant mood. The Alliance – even the name now seems to mock them – have disintegrated, no longer preparing...
Is the Chernobyl doorstop on its way? Surely it must be. I refer to the 1200-page, three-kilogram blockbuster which looms at you from airport bookstalls all over the reading world. Imagine the...
Until the end of last month, the peace accord signed between India and Sri Lanka on 29 July appeared, precariously and against the odds, to be holding firm. As I write this article, several...
When the Emperor Haile Selassie was removed from the palace in Addis Ababa 13 years ago, the Ethiopian revolutionaries chose to drive him away in a Volkswagen. It was in some sense an eye for an...
Late in July, well into the schools’ summer holidays, two copies of a consultation document entitled ‘The National Curriculum 5-16’ were delivered at the offices of the...