Lead book review
Shakespeare sceptics are the new literary heroes
Determined sceptics will always find reasons to cast doubt on Shakespeare’s authorship, but who cares in the end, Emma Smith wonders
Haunted by Old Russia: Rachmaninoff’s lonely final years
Exiled from Russia and often denigrated in America, Rachmaninoff lived in a fug of unbearable, impenetrable sadness, says Paul Kildea
Why are we so squeamish about describing women’s everyday experiences?
Philip Hensher discusses how words relating to women’s ordinary experiences have been shrouded in euphemism over the centuries
Jim Ede and the glories of Kettle’s Yard
Honor Clerk celebrates Jim Ede and his matchless collection at Kettle’s Yard
Daniel Chandler aims to bring new values to British politics – so how will that work out?
Daniel Chandler claims to be a bringer of values, to fill the vacuum at the heart of British politics. Noel Malcolm is unconvinced
Central Europe has shaped our culture for centuries – yet we still find the region baffling
Central Europe has shaped our history for centuries – but will the West always find it baffling, wonders Peter Frankopan
Is there anything safe left to eat?
It’s not only junk food we should be wary of, says Olivia Potts. Pretty well everything contains additives – and our five-a-day mantra is costing the Earth
The attraction of freethinking humanism
Philip Hensher admires the humanists of the past, and finds them consistently kinder, more decent and generous than their contemporaries
The Spanish Civil War still dominates our perception of modern Spain
Twentieth-century Spain was a violent, corrupt and volatile country – but that hardly made it an anomaly within Europe, says Sarah Watling
As special enclaves proliferate, what are the consequences for democracy?
Zones of exception, freed from ordinary forms of regulation, are proliferating in bewildering varieties. Kwasi Kwarteng considers the consequences for democracy
The remarkable prescience of Alexis de Tocqueville
Toby Young is struck by how prescient Tocqueville’s observations have proved on the social and political structures of the many countries he visited
The biography Noël Coward deserves
Philip Hensher follows Noël Coward from precocious childhood to the vortex of fame
Is this the end of travel writing?
Viv Groskop shares Sara Wheeler’s fears that modern sensibilities are fatally threatening a centuries-old genre
A radical new theory about the origin of the universe may help explain our existence
Alexander Masters examines the top down cosmology proposed by Stephen Hawking and Thomas Hertog
The world has become a toxic prison – and a volcanic winter lurks on the horizon
Our own actions have created the toxic prison in which we now live, says Peter Frankopan, and the future looks terrifying. Adam Nicolson can only agree
What, if anything, unites Asia as a continent?
Is it merely a European construct – and what, if anything, do its diverse peoples have in common, wonders Peter Frankopan
The nightmare continues
The Cultural Revolution may have been officially forgotten, but it will always haunt Xinran and her generation
Has Salman Rushdie become his own pastiche?
Salman Rushdie returns to India with a full-throated mix of history, magic realism and dazzling storytelling, says James Walton
Here be dragons, dog-headed men and women growing on trees
Justin Marozzi celebrates the medieval naturalist Zakariyya Qazwini and his breathtaking bid to capture the marvels of creation
The radicals of 17th-century England began to think the unthinkable
Few periods match the British 17th century for turmoil and idealism.No wonder historians have repeatedly been drawn to it, says Lucy Hughes-Hallett
Spare reviewed: Harry is completely disingenuous – or an idiot
What makes the Duke of Sussex believe he can lead a charge against practitioners of the written word, wonders Philip Hensher
The imaginative energy of Katherine Mansfield
Claire Harman discusses ten of Mansfield’s short stories in connection with her tragically short life
The collectors’ obsession with rare medieval manuscripts
Jonathan Sumption describes the age-old obsession of bibliophiles with acquiring rare illuminated manuscripts
Tales of old Hollywood are always entertaining – even when they’re apocryphal
If the early days lacked glamour, they certainly provided the best anecdotes, according to a new oral history
Friedrich Hayek: a great political thinker rather than a great economist
Robert Skidelsky follows Friedrich Hayek’s progression from technical economics to political thinking after his battles with John Maynard Keynes
