Big Europe Has Lost the War Over Ukraine
The EU’s claim to be a global power player stands exposed as the fantasies of an ageing pretender.
Category Archives: Magazines
PHILOSOPHY NOW MAGAZINE DECEMBER ’25/JANUARY 2026
PHILOSOPHY NOW MAGAZINE: The latest issue features ‘The Happiness Issue’
Hedonic Treadmills in the Vale of Tears
Michael Gracey looks at how philosophers have pursued happiness.
Arthur Schopenhauer: Philosophy’s Dr Feelgood
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), the author of The World as Will and Representation, was a profound metaphysician who also advocated basing ethics upon compassion. He was a great philosopher, but notoriously pessimistic, as the following quotations might suggest.
The Good Life Paradox
Matthew Hammerton points out that a meaningful life and a life that goes well for you might not be the same thing.
Deconstructing Happiness
Abdullah Rayhan breaks down ‘happiness’ with Boethius, Kierkegaard & Montaigne.
Ancient Indian Wisdom for a Restless Age
Jahnvi Borgohain looks at a variety of approaches to happiness.
The Necessary Ache
Tara Daneshmand on regret and the courage to choose.
THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE – Dec. 7, 2025
THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE: The 12.7.25 Issue features David Darlington on the dangers of e-bikes; Carlo Rotella on A.I. in the classroom; Lizzy Goodman on the music of Shaboozey; and more.
The Shocking Crash That Led One County to Reckon With the Dangers of E-Bikes
Unregulated e-bikes are a growing danger on American streets. In one Bay Area town, a terrible accident finally led to reform.
Why Does A.I. Write Like … That?
If only they were robotic! Instead, chatbots have developed a distinctive — and grating — voice .By Sam Kriss
He Had the Worst Bloody Nose of His Life. That Was Just the Beginning.
The man’s unchecked bleeding was a mystery for years before a scan revealed the cause. By Lisa Sanders, M.D.
The Dark Secrets of the Writer Behind ‘Train Dreams’
An adaptation of Denis Johnson’s novella arrives at the same time as a new biography, unlocking one of his best-loved and least-understood books.
BARRON’S MAGAZINE – DECEMBER 8, 2025
The New Private-Equity Billionaires Who Are Taking Over Wall Street
Private-market institutions are taking over from old-line legacy banks. The names to watch—and the dangers to watch out for.
Netflix Is Paying a Fortune for the Warner Deal—and Taking on Debt
Wall Street isn’t hiding how worried it is about the acquisition. The stock is taking a hit.
Nasdaq Lists Some Tiny IPOs That Go Up in Flames. Regulators Are Cracking Down.
Since 2023, there have been over 230 offerings below $15 million apiece on Nasdaq, compared with 33 on the New York Stock Exchange.
Retirees, It’s Time for Your Year-End Portfolio Review. Here’s What to Do.
A good year for stocks—and big gains in tech—may be making your portfolio too risky. How to get it in shape for 2026.
Productivity Is About to Slump—and AI Won’t Come to the Rescue
The history of technological innovation suggests it will take longer to reap the benefits of artificial intelligence than its champions realize. That spells problems for the economy.
THE ECONOMIST MAGAZINE – DECEMBER 6, 2025 PREVIEW
THE ECONOMIST MAGAZINE: The latest issue features ‘How AI is rewiring childhood‘
How AI is rewiring childhood
The technology presents dazzling opportunities—and ominous risks
Enough dithering. Europe must pay to save Ukraine
America will not. Europe’s security depends on agreeing how to
Syria’s transition has gone better than expected
The president has been a deft diplomat, but must do more reassure Syrians
Chris Waller, not Kevin Hassett, should lead the Federal Reserve
President Trump should choose the technocrat over the partisan
THE NEW STATESMAN MAGAZINE – DEC. 5, 2025
THE NEW STATESMAN (June 18, 2025): The latest issue features ‘Books of the Year’…
The book is dead? Long live the book!
We announce the New Statesman’s fiction and non-fiction books of the year By Tanjil Rashid
What we read when politics has no narrative
There is still much to discover from the great show of life
In the autumn of Salman Rushdie
The author’s late style in The Eleventh Hour, his new collection of fiction, reveals a venerable writer displaced by timeBy Tanjil Rashid
Donald Trump is making peace in Ukraine harder
America’s chaotic negotiations risk prolonging the chaos not ending it By Lawrence Freedman
THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY – DECEMBER 5, 2025 PREVIEW
Watching with horror from London last week as flames ripped through seven adjacent apartment blocks in Hong Kong, it was impossible not to think back to the Grenfell Tower fire of 2017, which exposed major systemic failures around UK social housing and eventually led to law changes around safety and accountability for high-rise buildings.
The comparisons with Hong Kong were not just visually obvious but also because the semi-autonomous city’s worst fire in decades appears to have followed months of complaints from residents about shoddy materials used in building works.
Hong Kong is of course a very different place to London, with politicians facing less public accountability in a political climate that makes it much harder for citizens to express dissent. But, as anger rises, hard questions are nevertheless being asked of authorities amid accusations of negligence and corruption.
Five essential reads in this week’s edition
The big story | Can Europe unite to tame Russia – without the US?
Washington’s Putin-appeasing plan for peace in Ukraine has failed, but many heard the death knell sound for European reliance on US protection, writes Patrick Wintour
Spotlight | If Rachel Reeves goes, will Keir Starmer fall with her?
British prime ministers rarely sack their chancellors – and when they do it almost inevitably leads to their own downfall. After last week’s budget, Starmer knows the same is true of him and Reeves, says Jessica Elgot
Feature | The dangerous rise of extremist Buddhism
Buddhism is still largely viewed as a peaceful philosophy – but across much of south-east Asia, the religion has been weaponised to serve nationalist goals. Sonia Faleiro investigates
Opinion | From the West Bank to Syria and Lebanon, Israel’s onslaught continues
Broken ceasefires, bombing, ground incursions and mounting deaths: Israeli imperialism is now expanding across the region, says Nesrine Malik
Culture | Ethan Hawke and Richard Linklater: two men on the moon
As their 11th movie together, Blue Moon, is released, the actor and director tell Xan Brooks about musicals, the legacy of Philip Seymour Hoffman and what being bald and short does to your flirting skills
NATURE MAGAZINE – DECEMBER 4, 2025
Cooking up a storm of air pollution
A study of the effects of COVID-19 policies highlights the underexplored impacts of commercial cooking on air quality.
The mystery of emerald green — cracked‘
Emerald’ or ‘Paris’ green was once a highly popular pigment among painters, but the chemistry behind its slow decay over time has been unclear.
Laser cooling traps more antimatter atoms than ever before
Studying trapped antimatter could help to explain why our world is so full of matter.
AI finds signs of life in ancient rocks
A specially trained algorithm could aid the search for biological activity both on the early Earth and on other worlds.
LITERARY REVIEW – DECEMBER 2025
LITERARY REVIEW : The latest issue features Peter Marshall on Holbein * Joanna Kavenna on Camus * Sophie Oliver on Margaret Atwood * Dorian Lynskey on George Orwell * Daisy Dunn on Clodia of Rome * David Andress on Jean-Paul Marat * John Foot on the Spanish Civil War * Jerry White on high-rise buildings * Edward Shawcross on Mexico * Daniel A Bell on the Chinese examination system * Anna Reid on Russian women * Charles Darwent on Barnett Newman * Robert Crawford on T S Eliot * Ian Sansom on William Golding * Mark Lawson on John Updike * Charles Shaar Murray on musicians * Patrick Porter on NATO * Thomas Morris on Renaissance diagrams * Diane Purkiss on palmistry * Nigel Andrew on penguins * John Mullan on pedants * Molly Pepper Steemson on Anthony Bourdain * Mark Ford on Helen Vendler * Emma Smith on book
Holbein: Renaissance Master By Elizabeth Goldring
It’s an irony to savour: the man who invented the Tudors was a German. If Henry VIII, his wives and courtiers exercise a stronger hold on the public imagination than their Plantagenet precursors or Stuart successors, it is because we can all picture them so clearly. That, in turn, is due to an extraordinary sequence of portraits and drawings produced between the late 1520s and early 1540s by Hans Holbein of Augsburg (c 1497–1543), many of which have become instantly recognisable.
Doublethink & Doubt
Orwell: 2+2=5 By Raoul Peck (dir)
George Orwell: Life and Legacy By Robert Colls
Nobody under the age of seventy-five has heard George Orwell’s voice. The only extant video footage is in a silent movie of the Eton Wall Game. None of his many wartime recordings for the BBC Eastern Service has survived. By all accounts his voice, damaged by a bullet to the throat during the Spanish Civil War, was thin, flat and weak. In fact, the controller of the BBC Overseas Service complained that putting on ‘so wholly unsuitable a voice’ made the BBC appear ‘ignorant of the essential needs of the microphone and of the audience’.
THE NEW YORKER MAGAZINE – DECEMBER 8, 2025
THE NEW YORKER MAGAZINE: The latest cover features ‘Klaas Verplancke’s “White House of Gold” – Mar-a-Lago extravagance on Pennsylvania Avenue.
In the Line of Fire
During the Trump era, political violence has become an increasingly urgent problem. Elected officials from both parties are struggling to respond. By Benjamin Wallace-Wells
The Undermining of the C.D.C.
The Department of Health and Human Services maintains that it is hewing to “gold standard, evidence-based science”—doublespeak that might unsettle Orwell. By Dhruv Khullar
What Makes Goethe So Special?
The German poet’s dauntingly eclectic accomplishments were founded on a tireless interrogation of how a life should be lived. By Merve Emre
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