The myth of ‘progressive’ thinking
Too much weight is put on the idea of ‘progress’
A bored business administrator in Leicester puts the intelligence services to shame
In the summer of 2012, a man was walking near Jabal Shashabo, a Syrian rebel enclave, when he spotted a…
The autistic mind could hold the key to the future
An old, cynical adage holds that ‘if all you’ve got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail’. I remembered…
Shock and awe — what should we make of our Viking ancestors?
In June 793, a raiding force arrived by boat at the island monastery of Lindisfarne, on the Northumbrian coast. The…
Disrupting the world — from a small bedroom in Hounslow
On 6 May 2010 the eurozone crisis was tearing through the continent. Greece was bankrupt, and it looked as though…
Much-hyped technological innovation isn’t necessarily progress
Modern advances in communication technology, computer power and medical science can sometimes be so startling as to seem almost like…
The nightmare of Okinawa made Truman decide to use the atom bomb
The US operation of 1945 to take the island of Okinawa was the largest battle of the Pacific during the…
Why were Kraftwerk such a colossal success?
Everything about Kraftwerk was odd. They had no front man, they seemed to play no instruments and their strange, electronic…
Liberty depends on a delicate balance between state and society
Liberty is a fragile thing. For thousands of years, civilisations have risen, flourished and fallen, and most of them have…
How Klaus Fuchs’s treachery may have averted Armageddon
When Klaus Fuchs started passing atomic secrets to the KGB, he changed the course of world events. Forget about Philby…
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