FROM THE MAGAZINE

March 2021

Religion

Out of my mind: the rise of mindfulness

Does meditation make us kinder people?

By Melanie McDonagh

From the Magazine

Politics

There’s no equality in equity

The advent of Joe Biden is another step on the road to the destruction (or ‘fundamental transformation’) of America

By Roger Kimball

From the Magazine

Politics

Who killed Chicago?

A city with too many problems

By Ed Zotti

From the Magazine

A virtual boomer book tour

Any time someone points out their faults, they start naming all the segments of humanity that the Sixties supposedly liberated

By Helen Andrews

From the Magazine

Politics

Kamalafornication

The Vice President and the politics of solipsism

By Peter Savodnik

From the Magazine

Economics

Death by debt

As long as demand holds up, the debt will only deepen

By Daniel McCarthy

From the Magazine

International

The Ethiopian question

What should the US do about the Tigray crisis?

By James Jeffrey

From the Magazine

Finance

Now make me rich

Are Bridget’s meme stonks going to the moon?

By Bridget Phetasy

From the Magazine

Politics

Kamalamania: prepare for President Harris

Ask where Harris stands and the footwork begins

By Kate Andrews

From the Magazine

Spectator Editorial

Foreign entanglements

In its desire to reverse the days of Trump, the Biden administration may mistake sentimentality for foreign policy

By Spectator Editorial

From the Magazine

China

The Sino-American War of 2025

A future history

By Michael R. Auslin

From the Magazine

Politics

Stop the real steal

Is this Trump’s biggest con yet?

By Paul Wood

From the Magazine

International

Passage to India

Biden needs another Asian pivot

By Francis Pike

From the Magazine

International

Wokeyleaks does Davos

Plus: what’s in the internal social justice portal for Northrop Grumman employees?

By They/Them

From the Magazine

The festival where Henry VIII and Francis I made their peace

On the 500th anniversary of the Field of the Cloth of Gold

By Harry Hudson

From the Magazine

Books + Arts

Book Review

A Scottish Paradise

Paradise: Dante’s Divine Trilogy Part Three. Englished in Prosaic Verse by Alasdair Gray reviewed

By Ian Thomson

From the Magazine

Book Review

An unquiet life

There’s No Such Thing as an Easy Job by Kikuko Tsumura reviewed

By Lee Langley

From the Magazine

Music

Yes man: Rick Wakeman on punk and prog

‘People choose the advice that suits them, including the politicians’

By Rod Liddle

From the Magazine

Architecture

From Prussia with love

The Humboldt brothers inspired Berlin’s museums — and London’s too

By Tristram Hunt

From the Magazine

Film

Eyes wide open

Frederic Raphael wrote the script for Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut. Now he writes a personal letter to the director’s shade

By Frederic Raphael

From the Magazine

Book Review

Swing the cat

We Are Bellingcat: Global Crime, Online Sleuths, and the Bold Future of News by Eliot Higgins reviewed

By Jay Elwes

From the Magazine

Television

Ridley’s game

Raised by Wolves reviewed

By James Delingpole

From the Magazine

Book Review

Playwright at play

Tom Stoppard: A Life by Hermione Lee reviewed

By Craig Raine

From the Magazine

Music

Alfred Brendel, Dadaist

Brendel’s writing, unlike his nobly self-effacing recordings, hints at a slightly scary personality

By Damian Thompson

From the Magazine

Television

Boys will be boys

Whatever happened to the heroes?

By Amber Duke

From the Magazine

Book Review

Russian roulette

Dostoevsky in Love: An Intimate Life by Alex Christofi reviewed

By Daniel Rey

From the Magazine

Book Review

Enlightened minds

Was there one Enlightenment or many?

By Jesse Norman

From the Magazine

Book Review

Missing links

Invisible Ink by Patrick Modiano reviewed

By Boyd Tonkin

From the Magazine

Book Review

The life and loves of Mary Wollstonecraft

Wollstonecraft: Philosophy, Passion and Politics by Sylvana Tomaselli reviewed

By Ruth Scurr

From the Magazine

Book Review

‘Mother Volga’ has always been Russia’s lifeblood

The Volga: A History by Janet M. Hartley reviewed

By Matthew Janney

From the Magazine

Life

Place

Time for Tudorbethan

Tudor architecture marked the first instance of Anglo domesticity recognizable today

By Chadwick Moore

From the Magazine

Home

Steve Hawley and the case for two New Yorks

Should the state of New York be divided into two states?

By Bill Kauffman

From the Magazine

Home

The New American Language

Words and phrases we could do without

By Chilton Williamson, Jr.

From the Magazine

Low Life

In praise of nuns

When the nuns begin to sing, their soaring, piercing voices make you look for a microphone

By Jeremy Clarke

From the Magazine

Where did ‘decuman’ come from?

Ovid and Lucan used decumanus, he found, of a wave, but not absolutely, as a noun

By Dot Wordsworth

From the Magazine

High Life

My unlikely friendship with Sir David Barclay

One more of the good guys is now gone

By Taki

From the Magazine

Home

Eccentric, artist and storyteller: in memory of my mother Doreen Sanders

She would live on mushrooms for a month, then put us up in the finest Parisian hotel

By Aidan Hartley

From the Magazine

Food and Drink

Drink

Why Grüner is my go-to

If I was ever unsure what to ask for, anywhere in Europe, I was not to panic

By Mary Kate Skehan

From the Magazine

Food

The diversity dinner

Marrying meatballs with plantains and curry

By Raj Tawney

From the Magazine

Drink

The Judgment of Paris

Putting California on the map

By Roger Kimball

From the Magazine

Food

Sap happy

Breaking the maple syrup monopoly

By Jane Stannus

From the Magazine