Politics

‘The one education reform no government has tried is putting parents firmly in control’

The Invention of Scotland: Myth and History by Hugh Trevor-Roper

Barack Obama has the mood, the momentum and the money in his favour – but John McCain’s character and record could yet swing November’s presidential election for the Republicans

‘A nuclear Iran is not just Israel’s problem. Stopping its programme is a paramount Western interest’

Wolf Totem is a disconcerting mixture of nationalism, lupine metaphors and nostalgia for the age of nomads. But what does the novel’s runaway success tell us of the aspirations of the new China?

From the Beatles and Wilson to Bono and Blair, the rise of rock stars to power and influence has tempted leaders all over the world to cultivate them – even at the risk of ridicule

No novelist since Stevenson imparts so much energy into simple-seeming sentences through inch-perfect phrasing and punctuation

Jung Chang and her husband Jon Halliday are leading authorities on Mao, while Simon Sebag Montefiore has published two major works on Stalin. With Standpoint editor Daniel Johnson, they discuss the two communist dictators who were responsible for up to 100 million deaths

‘Europeans see Israel as a reminder of the demons of their own past, but it has also been presented as the cause of terrorism’

‘Some artists have finally had the courage to admit that they are scared. But we need them to do better than that. We need people with a voice to show that they aren’t scared’