Rudyard Kipling
When Britannia ceased to rule the waves
The final volume of N.A.M. Rodger’s magisterial history documents the gradual decline of Britain’s naval power as the empire disintegrated
Cold War spying had much in common with the colonial era
Influenced by Kipling’s Kim, early CIA officers combined a love of overseas adventure with a whiff of imperial paranoia, says Hugh Wilford
My clairvoyant GP
‘Willie or bum?’ I said to Catriona on the motorway. Everything in my recent medical career has been introduced via…
Tortured youths: how childhood misery often makes for genius
Greatness. Genius. Can you bottle it? Is there a formula? Inspired by his Radio 4 series Great Lives, Matthew Parris…
Letters: The sorry state of BBC sport
Misplaced Trust Sir: Charles Moore is as ever bang on target (The Spectator’s Notes, 26 September). National Trust members have…
My Aunt Beryl’s zinc-lined trunk revealed extraordinary family secrets
Bexhill-on-Sea My Aunt Beryl taught me to love books and paintings. When I’m at a loose end in London, lonely,…
The Dragon school’s bizarre decision to ban Gunga Din
Why do schools want to erase the past?
Demystifying freemasonry
The history of rubbish can be scholarship, but the history of scholarship is often rubbish. Hindsight diminishes earlier habits of…
Red meat and red wine: the ideal way to spend the first Sunday of Lent
Life is far too important to be taken seriously. At least, that was the conclusion which we meandered towards as…
You won’t care it’s been done before, because it’s never been done like this: Jungle Book reviewed
This Jungle Book is Disney’s remake of its animated classic of 1967, as beloved by all generations thereafter. Warner Bros…
The King Kong of the thriller: the phenomenal output of Edgar Wallace, once the world’s most popular author
At the time of his death in 1932 Edgar Wallace had published some 200 books, 25 plays, 45 collections of…
