As AI erodes our attention spans and expressiveness, philosophers like Simone Weil and Arthur Schopenhauer offer profound insights on what it means to be an individual.
In The Diversity of Morals, Steven Lukes attempts to reconcile philosophical arguments that there is one morality despite cultural differences with empirical studies that suggest it’s all relative.
The ancient capital has plenty of artwork and fossils, if that’s what you like. Or tour the writing rooms of a Nobel winner, the fortified home of an exiled Russian revolutionary and towers of skulls
Before they become sandy souvenirs, the baubles in the bubbles of the shoreline serve as a veritable fortress for creatures like clams, mussels and conchs
Will Hosie asks what makes a pub a pub and eyes properties with a pop of colour, plus our writers have all you need to know this month and Gio Fio marvels at the reinvention of the north bank of the Thames
Out on the prairie
American plants may be the answer to our warming climate, reports Charles Quest-Ritson
Travel
Pamela Goodman roots around in the Nadder Valley in Wiltshire
In recent years, India’s ruling classes claimed—and perhaps came to believe—that their time had come on the world stage. India was the fastest-growing major economy, due soon to be the third largest, constituting a new global power. India’s biggest tycoons figured among the world’s top twenty billionaires, part of the transnational elite. Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared that India would be a “developed country” by 2047, the centenary of the end of colonial rule.
It’s getting on for twenty-four years ago that I first read Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr Ripley (1955). Books tend to come to us when we need them, and it’s easy to see why Tom Ripley’s project of self-reinvention and triumphant class resentment was so appealing to me as a twenty-year-old undergraduate.
The Sea-King and the Sorceress: Life and Death in the Viking Age By Neil Price
Few groups in history have been so variously defined, quarrelled over, misrepresented and appropriated as the Vikings. Their identity elusive, they have been passed around like historiographical tokens to the detriment of a deeper understanding of their cultural and political milieu. Neil Price’s The Sea-King and the Sorceress sidesteps these often sterile debates by examining the lives – and deaths – of more than twenty figures from the Viking Age and using them to shed light on wider themes, a bottom-up approach which is both logical and engaging.
The Cauldron: The Making of the Modern Middle East By Simon Sebag Montefiore
A highly readable gallop through one of the world’s most complex political environments, The Cauldron is brilliant on narrative, weaker on analysis. Simon Sebag Montefiore has set himself a formidable task: to compress the modern history of a region extending from Morocco to Iran, and from the fall of the Ottoman Empire to the wars of 2026, into a single volume. The result is an exuberant pageant of sultans, shahs, kings, colonels, spies, revolutionaries and assassins. Few historians could move so confidently from the salons of Cairo to the palaces of Riyadh, from Atatürk’s Ankara to Khomeini’s Najaf, while keeping so many figures vividly in play.
All the Wrong Moves: How Three Catastrophic Decisions and Years of Sh*tshow Politics Led to Trump – and How We Find a Way Out By Anthony Scaramucci
When Donald Trump fired him after just eleven days as his director of communications, Anthony Scaramucci thought his career was over. He had become such an object of ridicule that a crisis PR adviser suggested he lie low for a few years before attempting to start again. Instead, the self-styled ‘front stabber’ from New York – who had naively assumed that a successful Wall Street career could equip him for the toxic political swamp of Washington, DC – launched himself into a round of media interviews, choosing to roll with the punches.
For the thousands of foreign visitors who travelled behind the ‘bamboo curtain’ to visit Mao’s China, hospitality workers – guides, drivers, waiters, chambermaids – were unofficial ambassadors for the new socialist state, and the state knew it.
In 1943 letters reporting starvation and death in Bengal began to reach Indian soldiers serving the British overseas. Despite colonial censorship, their testimonies revealed the devastating reality of famine.
The Victorian reading public had access to a vast array of classical literature from Asia in multiple translations by experts and amateurs. What did they read, and why?
The legacy Kate Green hails Gavin Maxwell’s Ring of Bright Water, a remarkable tale of living with otters.
Fifty years young The King’s Trust is celebrating half a century of supporting young people. Ambassadors explain the secrets of its success and longevity to Paula Minchin.
Country-house treasure Intricate decorative ceilings at Thirlestane Castle, Berwickshire, catch the eye of John Goodall.
Alexander Campbell’s favourite painting The Royal Academy of Dance artistic director is moved by a compelling nocturnal scene.
A tower house reborn Mary Miers explores how the derelict tower house at Balgone in East Lothian has been transformed into a Classical seat.
Whisky galore From illicitly distilled dram to tipple of choice around the globe, Henry Jeffreys raises a glass to the world’s most popular spirit.
Winging it Mark Cocker adds the greylag goose to his Unloved Birds’ Club.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss James Fisher welcomes Joe Root back to the helm of English cricket.
Interiors Arabella Youens admires a Blenheim estate house in Oxfordshire and Kuba is king for Amelia Thorpe.
Cool as a cucumber sandwich This refreshing staple of English picnics is no sarnie-come-lately, reports Deborah Nicholls-Lee, as she reveals its Indian roots.
Arts & antiques Allan Scott, the scriptwriter and executive producer, tells Carla Passino why he will never part with a prized perpetual calendar.
Luxury New columnist Justine Picardie admires the Highland influence in the late Queen’s wardrobe and Amie Elizabeth White presents a bonnie Scottish selection.
Clash of the tartans What does it take to toss the caber and putt the stone? Harry Pearson muscles in on the heavyweight Highland Games.
Heart Nouveau Robyne Calvert reveals how the bold Glasgow Style of art and design conquered Europe.
Travel Rosie Paterson experiences the ultimate in luxury camping when visiting a conservation success story in Tanzania.
Rhythm and views Three decades of dramatic planting has paid off at Craichlaw House in Dumfries and Galloway, as Kirsty Fergusson discovers.
Summer of love A double bill of innovative open-air Shakespearean comedy benefits from dream casting, suggests Michael Billington.
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