Michael Collins on the issue-led rehabilitation of a fast food giant

Andrew Cusack says the influence of the Netherlands’ seaborne empire can still be felt around the world, from Manhattan and South Africa to modern Sri Lanka

Climate change targets are rising at a dangerous rate

There’s no wonder that books are becoming more conformist when freedom of expression is being curtailed

The new Great British Railways should abolish the garish sweet shop designs of today’s trains and look to the glorious liveries of the past

The origins of a soviet leader revered as a visionary reformer in the west, but reviled as a weak American puppet in his native land

David Cameron kept a copy of Evelyn Waugh’s peerless satire on his desk, but Boris Johnson’s eventful career is entirely in the Scoop mould

The secrets and lies of the Castro-loving 1960s revolutionaries who became part of the French establishment

A prize-winning old fraud

Michel Houellebecq’s prescient, mocking critiques of our debased modern world