In December 2022, after more than a decade of effort and frustration, scientists at the US National Ignition Facility (NIF) announced that they had set a world record by producing a fusion reaction that released more energy than it consumed — a phenomenon known as ignition. They have now proved that the feat was no accident by replicating it again and again, and the administration of US President Joe Biden is looking to build on this success by establishing a trio of US research centres to help advance the science.
The Burlington Magazine – January 3, 2024:The new issue features ‘The Golden Age of Avignon’ – Avignon as ‘New Rome’; Rubens and women; Tiepolo in New York; Gertrude Stein and Picasso, and more….
A vivid photograph of a lotus pond ushers visitors into this ambitious exhibition on the arts and culture of Jiangnan. Lying to the south of the Yangtze – its name literally means ‘south of the river’ – this part of China includes such major cities as Shanghai, Hangzhou and Suzhou. Curated by Clarissa von Spee, Chair of Asian Art and the James and Donna Reid Curator of Chinese Art at the Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA), this is the first exhibition outside China to present an encyclopaedic view of the cultural history of this historically affluent region.
Ever since the Walpole Society was founded in London in 1911 ‘with the object of promoting the study of the history of British art’, The Burlington Magazine has taken a close interest in an organisation with aims and principles so close to our own: this is the sixth Editorial we have devoted to the subject. The first, written by the art historian August F. Jaccaci, who edited the Magazine’s ‘Art in America’ section, appeared in 1913 on the occasion of the publication of the first of the annual volumes that are the society’s raison d’être.
Times Literary Supplement (January 3, 2024): The latest issue features ‘The Lady Vanishes’ – Muireann Maguire on a revival of classic crime fiction; What next for Julian Assange; David Hockney’s drawings; Dreaming up 007; The science of belonging and more…
Country Life Magazine – January 2, 2024: The latest issue features ‘The Very Best Of Britain’; Marylands, a Surrey country house with a Spanish influence; artist Anne Wright’s miniature Daffodils and snowdrops at her small nursery in North Yorkshire; and how January weather can set the tone for the year to come…
The foul-mouthed Miller and the prim Princess
Geoffrey Chaucer created his Canterbury pilgrims more than 600 years ago, yet his band of travellers speaks across the ages, finds Matthew Dennison
Let’s hear it for Britain
Carla Passino bangs the drum for the British Isles with 50 things to make the nation proud, from code-cracking to clever dogs — and everything in between
Snow magic
Mary Keen is mesmerised by the array of rare and highly collectable snowdrops that artist Anne Wright is breeding at her small nursery in North Yorkshire
Keith Halstead’s favourite painting
The chief executive of the Royal Countryside Fund chooses a work that sparks memories of his childhood in rural Norfolk
Thought for the year 2024
Carla Carlisle enters the new year with a determination to remain positive, fortified by the sentiments of W. H. Auden
A fairy house
The glamour and glitz of 1920s stage and screen is rekindled as Clive Aslet puts the spotlight on Marylands, a Surrey country house with a Spanish influence
Baby, it’s cold outside
In the first of a new series on weather lore, Lia Leendertz reveals how January can set the tone for the year to come
Interiors
The bathroom of a Somerset house is restored with a nod to its historic roots, finds Arabella Youens, and Amelia Thorpe shares ideas for creating your own luxury bathing sanctuary
London Life
Start the year with an exhibition, says Charlotte Mullins, while Carla Passino assesses architect Richard Rogers’s contribution to the London skyline and Gilly Hopper looks ahead to the year’s big events in the capital
Kitchen garden cook
Melanie Johnson on sweet and nutty Jerusalem artichokes
Travel
Mary Lussiana stays at a land-mark luxury hotel in Marrakech while Luke Abrahams explores Athens in the snow and James Fisher dons his skis and discovers the Dolomites
New series: Arts & Antiques
Carla Passino investigates the centuries-long British passion for collecting antiquities and finds that all roads lead to Rome
National Geographic Magazine (January 1, 2024) – The new issue features ‘Saving The Monarchs’ – Inside the movement to help these beautiful and vulnerable butterflies thrive; Can monarchs adapt to a rapidly changing world? – Extreme weather and rising temperatures threaten their epic migration, but scientists say targeted habitat restoration can help….
The iconic North American butterfly’s annual migration patterns are under threat from habitat loss and extreme weather, causing its devoted fans to research solutions and push for protection from the Endangered Species Act.
Jasper Doest spent nearly two months photographing the Netherlands’ Rottumeroog, where visitors are usually prohibited and he found a new sense of freedom.
Smithsonian Magazine (January 1, 2024) –The latest issue features ‘Picturing The Past’ – A special report on Tracing A Lost Ancestry; Reimagining Portraits of Civil War Heroes; A Journey to Discover an African Homeland; Pinpointing Birthplaces of the Enslaved, and more…
THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW (December 31, 2023): The latest issue features Francis Ford Coppola Is Ready For His Close-Up – Sam Wasson’s supremely entertaining new book, “The Path to Paradise”, tracks the ups and downs, ins and outs, of a remarkable career.
When the billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk sat down for his profanity-laced interview at The New York Times’s DealBook Summit in late November, his petulant dropping of F-bombs received a lot of attention. Less noticed but far more revealing was his evident disdain for a humble word beginning with the letter T. “You could not trust me,” Musk said, affecting an air of tough-guy indifference in his shearling-collared flight jacket and shiny black boots. “It is irrelevant. The rocket track record speaks for itself.”
Foreign Policy Magazine(December 31, 2023): The Best of Books 2024 – Here are 30 major nonfiction titles coming out this year on Foreign Policy’s radar, from economic manifestos to histories of forgotten eras to new assessments of great-power competition in the 21st century.New titles include:
From veteran Amazon reporter for The Wall Street Journal, The Everything War is the first untold, devastating exposé of Amazon’s endless strategic greed, from destroying Main Street to remaking corporate power, in pursuit of total domination, by any means necessary.
In 2017, Lina Khan published a paper that accused Amazon of being a monopoly, having grown so large, and embedded in so many industries, it was akin to a modern-day Standard Oil. Unlike Rockefeller’s empire, however, Bezos’s company had grown voraciously without much scrutiny.
A stunning investigation and indictment of the elements in United States’ foreign lobbying industry and the threat they pose to democracy.
For years, one group of Americans has worked as foot-soldiers for the most authoritarian regimes around the planet. In the process, they’ve not only entrenched dictatorships and spread kleptocratic networks, but they’ve secretly guided U.S. policy without the rest of America even being aware. And now, journalist Casey Michel contends some of them have begun turning their sights on American democracy itself.
Three decades after the end of the Cold War, the United States finds itself in a volatile rivalry against the other two great nuclear powers–Xi Jinping’s China and Vladimir Putin’s Russia–in a world far more complex and dangerous than that of a half century ago
.New Cold Wars–the latest from Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and bestselling author of The Perfect Weapon, David E. Sanger–is a fast-paced account of America’s plunge into simultaneous confrontations against two very different adversaries. For years, the United States was confident that the newly-democratic Russia and increasingly wealthy China could be lured into a Western-led order that promised prosperity and relative peace–so long as they agreed to Washington’s terms. By the time America emerged from the age of terrorism, it was clear that this had been a fantasy.
She fell in love with a future president at 17. Marriage never waylaid her dreams.
By MICHAEL PATERNITI
Three miles lie between this life and another, between their two houses, hers in downtown Plains, Ga., and his family farm in the country surrounded by peanuts planted in red clay. Three miles between the ordinary and extraordinary.
Uncovering the unlikely story behind the singer’s first album.
By JOHN JEREMIAH SULLIVAN
To say that Sinead O’Connor never quite regained the musical heights of her 1987 debut album, “The Lion and the Cobra,” is not to slight the rest of her output, which contained jewels. There is no getting back to a record like that first one. It was in some sense literally scary: The label had to change the original cover art, which showed a bald O’Connor hissing like a banshee cat, for the American release. In the version we saw, she looks down, arms crossed, mouth closed, vulnerable. The music had both sides of her in it.
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