It is the most powerful political party in the world, controlling China’s future as well as its past, but was the young CCP in control of its imperial destiny?
As ancient Rome was divided by civil war Cicero found himself torn. Caesar was his old adversary, but he was also powerful, and it was politically and personally expedient to support him.
Brazil’s first newspaper was published from London by an exiled Freemason on first-name terms with British royalty. Who was Hipólito da Costa and what was his news?
In August 1936 Franklin D. Roosevelt gave a boldly pacifist campaign speech, promising no American would have to go to war. It had seemed a realistic promise.
Agnes Stamp meets the cereal-snaffling, bed-wrecking, turkey-wrangling miniature bull terrier who took the title—and rounds up the best (or worst) of the rest
The 39 steps to being a good dog owner
From clamping down on begging to sweetening bad breath, William Hanson presents his guide to modern pet-iquette
Ian Seath’s favourite painting
The Royal Kennel Club chairman chooses a work that celebrates canine collaboration with humans
Pup and coming
There have never been so many options for pampering your pooch. Mary Skipwith explores the rapidly evolving world of canine luxury
Country-house treasure
John Goodall marvels at the extensive 18th-century library at Powderham Castle in Devon
The legacy
Kate Green applauds Enid Blyton for dreaming up the spirited adventures of the Famous Five
A power in the landscape
In the first of two articles, John Goodall explores the early history of Curraghmore in Co Waterford, one of Ireland’s great houses
Bone appétit
Why settle for discarded street snacks when there is succulent chicken on the menu, asks Jack Russell Maud Parker Bowles
Interiors
Arabella Youens investigates interiors designed with pets in mind and Amelia Thorpe shares accessories for the (dog) house
Winging it
Why can’t we learn to love the wood pigeon, asks Mark Cocker
You got me there
David Profumo pursues tricky brown trout in a day on the Test
Everything bar the Oompa Loompas
Harry Pearson visits The Oldest Sweet Shop in England, which has traded in treats since 1827
Luxury
Fruity accessories offer rich pickings for Amie Elizabeth White
Colour for all seasons
Kathryn Bradley-Hole admires the spectacular successional planting in the new gardens of The Copper House in Kent
Travel
Steven King savours the spirit of the Hebrides and the natural beauty of the Isle of Harris during a stay at historic Rodel House
Arts & antiques
The rise of service à la russe in the 19th century turned the tables in upper-class British dining, discovers Carla Passino
To say nothing of the dog
Michael Prodger examines the history of canines on canvas and reveals how artists have warmed to Man’s best friend
Investment, organisation and effort can guarantee secure water supplies for everyone in Britain, argues Lord Deben
The power of water
Kate Green surveys the surging strength of the Severn Bore, the haunting beauty of the flooded Somerset Levels, life on the edge at Dawlish and the capital’s mighty Thames Barrier.
Why every drop counts
People who work with water tell Kate Green and Mary Skipwith why we need to reconnect with our most precious resource
Up with the gulls, to bed with the owl
Patrick Galbraith experiences an eventful day in the life of the ever-changing, but enduringly beautiful Cley estuary in Norfolk
On peak form
Artists such as Turner, Bierstadt and Wolf took painting to new heights with their depictions of mountains, finds Michael Prodger
Let all the world sing
The 2026 BBC Proms promises to be a truly global spectacle, as Henrietta Bredin discovers
The queen of spas
Scarborough in North Yorkshire is the original Victorian seaside resort. Kathryn Ferry charts the development of its spa complex
The Revd Sam Wells’s favourite painting
The St Martin-in-the-Fields vicar chooses a painting where ‘magnificent humanity’ is laid bare
Country-house treasure
John Goodall unearths evidence of Bowood in Wiltshire’s wartime role as a ‘beacon of recovery’
Pooling assets
George Plumptre is charmed by the Anglo-Italian landscape at Renishaw Hall in Derbyshire
The legacy
Agnes Stamp pays tribute to speed merchant Sir Max Aitken, the king of British powerboating
Winging it
Mark Cocker assesses the anti-social antics of the herring gull
Luxury
Jonathan Self ponders the power of fine jewellery and Amie Elizabeth White finds coral for all
Interiors
Arabella Youens visits a kitchen giving a nod to history, and reveals that chequerboard floors are back
Travel
Rosie Paterson is looking for a New England in Nantucket
Arts & antiques
Carla Passino investigates the intriguing tale of ‘Mad Madge’, a pioneer of science-fiction
Truth, lies and somewhere in between
Michael Billington delves into a world of deceit and infidelity
Samuel Clemens is everywhere in Hannibal, Missouri, but is the story the town tells about its favorite son grounded in reality or myth? By Ruth Franklin
America’s centennial in 1876 was celebrated with a grand exhibition that projected an image of national unity and inventiveness in the anxious aftermath of civil war and recession.
Centennial: The Great Fair of 1876 and the Invention of America’s Future by Fergus M. Bordewich
Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff’s Muskism examines how Elon Musk became the world’s first trillionaire, by selling a vision of the future that very few people would want to inhabit.
Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed by Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff
The notion of a “global structural crisis of capital” defining our times was first introduced by István Mészáros in the third edition of his Marx’s Theory of Alienation in 1971, and in his Isaac Deutscher Memorial Lecture, “The Necessity of Social Control” that same year.2 In 1995 in Beyond Capital, Mészáros distinguished the emerging, epochal structural crisis of capital from the cyclical and conjunctural crises that are “capital’s natural mode of existence.”
Hold off on that online-shopping impulse buy — there’s no substitute for carefully crafted quality
It’s getting hot in here
Ben Lerwill sets his tastebuds a-tingling as he meets the British chilli-sauce makers adding to the spice of life
Luxury
If you only buy one suitcase, make it a classic GlobeTrotter, suggests Amie Elizabeth White
Winging it
Mark Cocker looks beyond the raven’s grim reputation to seek the truth about our largest corvid
Sir Lindsay Hoyle’s favourite painting
The Speaker of the House of Commons is captivated by the Westminster riverfront in a work with a photographic quality
On top of the world
Kirsty Fergusson applauds the stamina of the hardy souls who tend the spectacular clifftop gardens at Chygurno, Cornwall
Country-house treasure
John Goodall stands in the stead of William Tyndale behind a preacher’s pulpit at Bucklebury House in Berkshire
The legacy
Agnes Stamp salutes Agnes Marshall, the Queen of Ices
While the cat’s away…
David Glasper lifts the lid on the cat flap, the means by which the regal feline can come and go precisely as it pleases
An architectural evolution
Jeremy Musson charts the rise of Selwyn College, Cambridge, from its origins as a memorial to a 19th-century missionary
The raw deal
Tom Parker Bowles savours the lip-smacking summer freshness of that Peruvian classic ceviche
Travel
Rosie Paterson unpacks the latest in luxury-yacht looks and follows in Frida Kahlo’s footsteps
Arts & antiques
Beauty and function were fused in the form of the sedan chair, the conveyance of choice for the upper echelons of Georgian society, reveals Carla Passino
Art to dine for
Intriguing art can be a meal-time conversation starter in country-house dining rooms, as Melanie Cable-Alexander discovers
Catch of the day
Collector Paul Martin shares his tips on amassing a school of exquisite antiquarian fish prints
Hegel turned the world onto its head and Marx turned it back on its feet, and now finance is turning the world on its head again. In the early 19th century, Hegel proposed that human history was shaped by consciousness, by human spirit, by the head. Marx argued, in turn, that history was actually determined by practical social conditions, by the way people make their means of living, standing on their feet. It was capitalism that made it seem like heads, owners of industry and leaders of states and their apologists, intellectuals, made history happen, and not workers. The feet were the source of power while the heads claimed all the power for themselves. It is harder to believe this is true now. Industry does not matter much to finance, and labor even less. Finance packages up the productive economy to resell it according to its own rules. A few prescient people have been studying the way the new rules ruin living conditions, pervert political possibilities, and increasingly dominate the global order. Yet, there is still no field dedicated to theorising the ill effects of the newly upside-down world. We need, in short, a critical theory of finance.
In ‘Money,’ Stefan Eich exposes a paradox. Money needs everyone’s trust to operate, and yet economists and politicians claim that only they can decide on its uses. In ‘What is Monetary Policy,’ Leah Downey explains how the technocratic apparatus of policy prevents democratic decision-making. Melinda Cooper considers the challenge supposedly presented by Schumpeter’s view of the relation between family, capitalism, and democracy. Radhika Desai demonstrates a tradition in Marxist thought that already predicts financialisation and has a strong theory of it. Finally, Paul North briefly evaluates four very general positions from which to critique finance, as a preparation for a critical theory of finance.
Also in this issue, Peter West explores how Plato continues to speak to our present moment, with Angie Hobbs’ recent book offering a timely defence of dialogue against the rise of censorship, polarisation, and performative debate. Meanwhile, Marie Snyder reflects on The End Doesn’t Happen All at Once, a pandemic memoir in letters that traces how friendship, literature, and mutual care sustained lives through the disorientation and inequalities of Covid.
Kristie Miller puzzles over our preference for how our well-being is distributed over time; Alison Stone delves into Victorian philosophy as a distinct tradition in which women philosophers played a significant role; Matthew Sharpe makes the case for reclaiming Stoicism from the manosphere and the far right; Mary Peterson continues a conversation started in her 2024 article in The Philosopher, on restorative justice and sexual misconduct; and Adrian K. Yee asks what ethical issues are raised by the use of machine learning in counterterrorism.
News, Views and Reviews For The Intellectually Curious