The best thing about Harry G. Frankfurt’s On Inequality is the paper
Ten years ago, a philosophy professor at Princeton wrote a book with a provocative, slightly indecent title. It was a…
The best American political memoir in a generation
In June 2009, the good people of South Carolina lost Mark Sanford, their governor. Per his instructions, his staff told…
John Maynard Keynes: transforming global economy while reading Virginia Woolf
To the 21st-century right, especially in the United States, John Maynard Keynes has become a much-hated figure whose name is…
What makes mankind behave so atrociously? Ian Buruma and Joanna Bourke investigate
The first interaction between two men recorded in the Bible involves a murder. In the earliest classic of English literature,…
Secretive, arrogant and reckless: the young T.E. Lawrence began life as he meant to go on
The Lawrence books are piling up, aren’t they? I don’t mean the author of The Rainbow, though as I write…
Keep the Man Booker Prize British
Americans don’t need the cachet of our most prestigious literary prize – but we do, says Matthew Walther
Hillary Clinton’s autobiography seems destined to join her husband’s - in a bin marked ‘Free’
Last year a Washington-based journalist called Mark Leibovich wrote This Town, a book whose thesis was, roughly, that Washington-based journalists…
The American who dreamed of peace for the Arabs – but was murdered in their midst
‘Arabist’ is fast becoming an archaism. Perhaps it is already one. These days the word conjures up enchanting visions of…
I used to like George Kennan. Then I read his diaries
George Kennan, the career diplomat and historian best known for his sensible suggestion that the United States try to resist…
Angel, by Elizabeth Taylor - review
‘She wrote fiction?’ Even today, with the admirable ladies at Virago nearly finished reissuing her dozen novels, Elizabeth Taylor remains…
