Magazine
The road to hell for the mentally incapacitated
The weasel words of disability rights may be well-intentioned, but they mask institutional cruelty and deprive caring parents of their say
The troubling legacy of Martin Luther King
Newly-revealed FBI documents portray the great civil rights leader as a sexual libertine who ‘laughed’ as a forcible rape took place
Belly of the beast
The Booker-winning Marlon James takes on the fantasy genre with a novel sent in a phantasmagorical version of Africa
Perils of paying off the pirates
Kidnapping remains a lucrative business. Anja Shortland’s new book examines how and where it thrives
In defence of globalisation
Free trade is not without costs — but those costs are outweighed by the benefits. And where costs exist, the answer to “open” is rarely “closed”
Scones and jam in the fridge
The lives of Southern Irish Protestants are almost invisible to external observers. A new book of essays sets out to reveal something of them
Singled out by the stupid
Imperialism has been a fact of historical life, at all times and throughout the world. So why is the British variety singled out? Jeremy Black has raised his head above the parapet, not so much to defend the Empire as to ponder why it arouses such animosity
Tidying up the trivial
Jonathan Rée’s history of philosophy is way too long but worth sticking with for the connections it makes across whole networks of thought
Design for living and loving
The three lives of Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus
Irreverent reboot of well woke Will
Is Shakespeare ‘accessible’? The truth is that Shakespeare’s plays combine an unusual accessibility of human situation with an unusual difficulty of language
Why Remoaners should back Boris
“Boris, ironically, now offers Remoaners the best chance of a soft Brexit, or at least a sensible one. And to those who want a second referendum—’the people’s vote’—there may even be a chance of that too.”
On the road
“In the summer of 1980, in the grip of some Kerouac-ish fantasy, I opted to hitch-hike from Laredo to New York”
Discovering the Great War of China
A third of a million Chinese labourers helped the Allies defeat the Kaiser, but their huge unsung contribution ended in betrayal