Issue: December/January 2022
The emperors’ new clothes
Beard emerges with a portrait of the emperors’ afterlives as vivid as the busts themselves
Sherlock Holmes plays the white man
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s many passions included a view of Empire that would today be regarded as racist
Artistry in the kitchen
Calmly brilliant cooking rescues a vogueish restaurant full of underwhelming art
Woke: the oldest profession
The modern hegemony of the “liberal professions” has become one of the principal challenges to liberal democracy
Hopes turn to Ashes
At this year’s series, bubbles will mean not Veuve Clicquot but protocols designed to ensure that the ball is all anyone catches Down Under
High-voltage Haitink recalled
Bernard Haitink, who died last month, was a conducting master
The ECB fails to deliver
A horrible split is emerging in the English game where one side fears the other is deliberately plotting the destruction of county cricket
The new female ascendency
How will society be changed by the over-production of female graduates?
Most Read
American strategy in Iran is wiser than it seems
President Trump’s intervention will leave the world safer than it was
Saint Nicola
Nicola Sturgeon wants sympathy for her husband’s crimes—but after years spent avoiding awkward questions, her latest reinvention may be the hardest sell yet.
The lonely death of Henry Nowak
We must draw lessons from a horrendous and disgraceful case
Rewatching the English
English identity has become too surreal and discomfiting to define
A failed war on fags
The black market has taken over the tobacco trade Down Under
The NHS is no longer above question
People are finally, if grudgingly, waking up to its flaws
Keep the state out of sex
Bureaucracy should not be allowed into the bedroom
The Arctic circle: a game of ice and fire
The Arctic is fast becoming a hotspot for great power competition
What makes an American?
What characterises a US citizen in the 21st century, beyond abiding by the country’s laws and supporting its constitution?
First time thrills
Most of all, it was a tournament of heroes and villains
The costs of telling the truth too late
The girl guiding decision is causing pain — so why do activists seek to prolong it?
A magnificent navy on land
The state of the British Armed Forces triumphantly vindicates Parkinson’s Law
The judge’s verdict
Much of what is passed off as sport is no such thing
Reform should ignore bad faith criticism
The party is not perfect but that does not make all criticism valid
Supernatural delight
Religion cannot be reduced to dry abstractions
North Korea’s rogue state development
How Kim Jong Un is embracing the modern world