Big Furniture, Small Staircases: Making an Apartment Move Work
Moving into or out of an apartment can be complicated even when the furniture is modest. Add an oversized sectional, a solid wood wardrobe, or…
Who owns the Bayeux Tapestry?
It is remarkable that two of France’s most precious national treasures are not French. The Mona Lisa arrived in France with Leonardo da Vinci in 1516, and has remained there…
Inside Afghanistan’s terror schools
A few months ago, Manizha’s eight-year-old son came to her with a question. “What,” he asked, “is jihad?” His words left Manizha speechless — especially when the former Kabul office…
The next financial crash: a scenario
There are two mistakes you can make with predictions: claiming that something will happen when it won’t, or that it won’t happen when it will. The economist Paul Samuelson joked…
Reform’s struggle to be serious
“This James thing is fucked,” were the first words I heard on the train. It was the 8:10 to Birmingham International, and a clutch of young men wearing blue suits,…
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…