9/11 could happen again
When I visited the trenches of northern France a century after the First World War ended, I found farmers’ plows still turning up munitions and dead men. Like little children…
Why we can’t get off Freud’s couch
Only tedious people share their dreams, but I beg your indulgence. In a recent dream — a nightmare, really — I visited the home of a friend with whom I…
The Gloria Steinem I knew
I first met Gloria Steinem at the Café des Artistes in October 1997. That bohemian spot in Lower Manhattan was the feminist writer Andrea Dworkin’s favorite meeting place. She once…
Putin: the blind autocrat
In The Wizard of the Kremlin, a movie whose most impressive achievement is making Russian history boring, Paul Dano plays a Kremlin PR hack tasked with building what Putin, played…
A childless world changes everything
Smannell and Enham Church of England Primary School looks more like a chapel than a place of learning. On this fine morning, the Victorian-era building is quiet as I stare…
How Shakespeare explains the Taliban
“Ban, ban, Ca-Caliban! / Has a new master. Get a new man.” Whenever I see the word “Taliban” I always think of The Tempest. Caliban sings those lines after Stephano…
The plot to stop the AfD
Saxony-Anhalt, in the western part of eastern Germany, is hardly the country’s most important state: it accounts for only a fraction of Germany’s GDP and is home to just two…
Why universities embrace cheats
Imagine you discover a magical ring that bestows invisibility on its wearer. What do you do next? Many an introductory ethics course has started with the Ring of Gyges from…
How Domesday made modern England
Over the next nine months, visitors to the British Museum’s much-heralded Bayeux Tapestry exhibition will encounter a 1,000-year-old, all-action cinematic masterpiece. On it, they will see warlords hunt and fight…
Nepal’s clean energy curse
It is an article of progressive faith, and I timidly count myself among the faithful, that the green transition is necessary for our survival as a species. On this point,…