North America
Loose Cannon
Gone Tomorrow by Lee Child
Stanford, CA: Intellectual Life Under Obama
‘A mock funfair with absurdist theatre and the return of ideologues of 40 years ago — is that the new era of change and hope?’
Outward Bound
Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín
Lionel Trilling
America’s greatest critic put moral imagination at the heart of his literary and social criticism
It Must be those Secret Agents of Zion
‘All it takes to stay off Stephen Walt’s list of “usual suspects” is to have a non-Jewish sounding surname’
Agent of his Own Downfall
The Lost Spy: An American in Stalin’s Service by Andrew Meier
A Map of the Mind
The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet by Reif Larsen
In Bad Faith
Bill Maher’s anti-religious satire, Religulous, makes even an agnostic root for the other side
Don’t Write off America
It’s fashionable to say the US is in terminal decline. Don’t bet on it – still less wish for it
Charles Krauthammer
The liberal-turned-neocon has a knack of creating phrases which best describe the moment
Carrying water for freedom
Hong Kong’s protestors are brave and, so far, successful. The Chinese Communist Party leadership must be kicking itself
Discussions with a stone wall
Britain’s main gay rights organisation is risking its own future by adopting gender self-ID as its new cause
In the heartlands of white-flag academia
When I tried to find out why my pro-Brexit article was turned down I was rebuffed — showing the intellectual conformism of universities