Paul Stephenson
Paul Stephenson is the author of "The Serpent Column: a cultural biography," which explores the history of a bronze sculpture through 2,500 years. His next book is "New Rome. The Roman Empire in the East", forthcoming with Profile and Harvard University Press.
Heirs to Byzantium
Unlike Putin, the British have never really understood the central importance of Constantinople to European history
The Fate of Hagia Sophia
Will Hagia Sophia’s Christian heritage survive under President Erdoğan’s ‘neo-Ottoman’ vision?
Assaulting statues
The history of iconoclasm offers deeper lessons than are on display in the current statue-toppling craze
The erotic art book banned by a pope
A rich tale of great artists, pornography and the papacy has made I Modi one of the most fabled of all books
Ireland has become an exporter of gender ideology
An architect of Irish trans policy has been elected Human Rights Commissioner of the Council of Europe
Could it be magic?
Magus: The Art of Magic from Faustus to Agrippa by Anthony Grafton
Plane crash government
With Sunak’s agenda firmly earthbound and far from civilisation, some MPs are clearly contemplating cannibalism
Saving London from the czar
London’s nightlife could be great — but it needs real change
The crisis in the universities
A Critic panel brought light as well as heat to the troubled question of higher education
The F-word
A serious accusation should be treated with appropriate seriousness
Has the US acted in good faith over Ukraine?
Weakening Russia seems to have been more important than strengthening Ukraine
Don’t take the vapes!
Will there be no end to the government’s embrace of prohibitionism?
The hidden cost of pronoun politeness
Using untruthful pronouns is not the same as complimenting a bad haircut
Entering the populist Pyongyang
Your correspondent watches the far right debate immigration — but will he go native?