Issue: June 2023
How Napoleon won in the end
British business leaders have much to learn from their shrewd French counterparts
Will TikTok take to Tocqueville?
Popular history can be more than everything ribald and rip-roaring and frenetic and fun
Boom time
The burdens of being a national treasure, treacherous boy wizards and neglected English roses
Diva and the Dane
The Motive and the Cue at the National Theatre delves into the relationship of an acting power couple.
The “on behalf of ” Labour Party
It was founded as the party of working people, so why are Labour’s prospective MPs more middle-class than ever before?
The medieval shock of the new
Changes in the early modern period forced people to look at themselves anew
The feud that made the modern age
A new book breathes new life into historical fiction
Stravinsky’s reputation is in freefall
Norman Lebrecht re-examines the life and legacy of Stravinsky.
What are your links to slavery?
Some of those connected with the slave trade by the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography have only the most tenuous of associations
Unpacking an economic titan
Hayek was not, and always insisted that he was not, a laissez-faire economist
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 disunited kingdom
The establishment must confront the disturbing realities of sectarian politics in the UK
The Starmer strikes back
In a galaxy far, far from stable, Labour’s leadership chaos overshadows the King’s Speech
A new town versus an old estate
Development in the heart of rural Oxfordshire will change the ecology of the surrounding area
Good enough for politics
We should be more willing to declare some political problems solved
Discontent down under
Populism is now a significant part of Australian politics
Kemi at the crossroads
Kemi Badenoch cannot tell everybody what they want to hear
Rich portrait of a master poet
Auden, Peter Ackroyd
Empire State Madrid
Can a stagnant Spain rediscover the future? Hope lies with its capital
Whip smart
Threatening the whipping system would be alarmingly stupid
Don’t panic about “Angry Young Women”
Despite everything, most people are still fairly normal
The Islamic identity crisis
V.S. Naipaul was prophetic on the struggles between Islam and modernity