Sociology
Reliving the terror of the Bataclan massacre
Emmanuel Carrère knows when to let the horrors speak for themselves in his moving, hard-hitting account of the trial of the perpetrators
The great sociology con
My default mood at the moment is bleak despair, although it can sometimes be triggered into nihilistic loathing, which I…
Social mobility has become a meaningless mantra
‘Whatever your background,’ Margaret Thatcher told the Sun’s readers in 1983, she was determined that ‘you have a chance to…
Where’s all the joy gone?
Britain seems to be suffering from a dearth of lightheartedness
John Gray’s great tour-guide of ideas: from the Garden of Eden to secret rendition
You can’t accuse John Gray of dodging the big questions, or indeed the big answers. His new book The Soul…
Tread carefully! Your garden is saturated with racial meaning – and so is Ikea
Is your life saturated with racial meaning? The most common answer to this question, when I ask friends and acquaintances,…
The man who went to Hell and back – for a laugh
Since the passing of Auberon Waugh, there haven’t been many really successful right-wing comedians. The Mayor of London is one.…
When intellectuals are clueless about the first world war
No one alive now has any adult experience of the first world war, but still it shows no sign of…
