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Andrew Moravcsikprofessor of politics
Overrated The Russia-Georgian conflict. For a while it seemed that the Russia-Georgia conflict was going to usher in a new geopolitical era of Russian expansionism and Nato counter-balancing in central Asia. In fact it proved a peripheral event: An imprudent Georgian leader sought to bolster domestic stature by playing the nationalist card, and a Russian leader sought to do the same. Both overplayed their hands, Nato stayed out, and the world moved on.
Mark Pagelprofessor of biology
Overrated & Underrated Art is dead. Long live art. Damien Hirst's vaunted public auction can justifiably lay claim to the "best hustle" award of 2008. Happily, art does live, just elsewhere. Go and gaze at a Rothko, you have until the new year.
Katharine Quarmbyjournalist & writer
Underrated 1. Building Schools for the Future: the biggest building programme for schools in the world? Of course it doesn't need any scrutiny—does it? When I first started writing about BSF a year ago, I had to scrabble around to find anyone who knew anything about the programme—apart from the hapless delivery body that was established to run it, Partnerships for Schools (PfS). That has, thankfully, changed, and PfS has sharpened up its act, but the programme still remains an under-scrutinised basket of money, swilling around local authorities and building contractors, with far too little attention paid to whether forking out for new buildings actually raises achievement. I can't believe I'm saying this, but thank heaven for Michael Gove, who has, belatedly, started to look at the programme, though whether his flatpack Swedish model will be any better, remains to be seen.
2. Angela Hewitt's birthday residency at the Wigmore Hall: Although the Canadian born pianist's 50th birthday mini-residency at the Wigmore Hall attracted some interviews, surely she deserved more. I was lucky enough to get a ticket to her sold out Monday lunchtime concert in September. Hewitt played some of her beloved Bach (Partita in G), but it was the Beethoven Piano Sonata in D that moved the audience beyond words. Hewitt plays with character, humour and depth of field. Her rendering of the slow movement left the audience rapt. It was as if Eliza Bennett had finally applied herself to the piano and all her sprightliness and elasticity flowed forth in music. And she even gave us a sublime encore—Sheep May Safely Graze—delighting a dazed audience and sending them, speechless, into Oxford Street.
Gideon RachmanFT journalist
Overrated Barack Obama's speeches. Obama delivers a speech beautifully. But if you take away the gravelly voice and the cheering crowds—and just sit down to read his speeches—it is a disappointing experience. The president-elect's stock speech is a compendium of the most boring, feelgood slogans in American politics: unity not division, the people are good and lobbyists are bad, change must come to Washington, the future not the past. His most famous slogan, "Yes We Can" is the political version of Nike's "Just do it." The only really thoughtful speech Obama gave all year was his discourse on race in Philadelphia—and that was because he had been forced into a corner by the Jeremiah Wright affair.
Underrated William Boyd. Neither of the books William Boyd published in 2008 seem to have made any of the "books of the year" lists. Admittedly, both Bamboo and The Dream Lover bring together previously-published work. But I think there is an anti-Boyd prejudice in the literary establishment. He is just too easy to read and therefore cannot be "serious."
Lisa Randallprofessor of physics
Overrated Black holes at the Large Hadron Collider. People have a right to question new scientific arenas, but responsible press should also evaluate the legitimacy of the claims. In the case of black holes, physicists seriously addressed the questions and showed there is no danger. That is not to say that questions should not be permitted—just that answers should be listened to as well.
Ian Rankinnovelist
Overrated Tom Waits's return to performing in Britain. He only played the one venue, Edinburgh's Playhouse Theatre. Having seen him there many years ago I was looking forward to the "rematch." I even swallowed hard and paid the £95 official ticket price! It was a letdown. The sound wasn't great, the band seemed to be going through the motions, and Waits himself spent too long mumbling annoying anecdotes. Worst of all was the reaction, with audience enraptured and initial reviews gushing. Thankfully comedian Stewart Lee had the good sense to pan the show a week or so later in the Sunday Times. Lee's own show at the Edinburgh Fringe, by the way, was effective, brave and wholly engaging. Not that the media seemed to notice…
Jonathan Réewriter and philosopher
Underrated Reviewers have been saying for years that the English National Opera is not what it used to be. But anyone who has been there recently—for Partenope or Boris Godunov or Riders to the Sea—will know that people's opera is back on form: thrills in the pit, vitality on the stage and a big buzz in the auditorium.
Robert Reichformer US secretary of labour
Overrated Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's "Troubled Asset Relief Program." It was supposed to stabilise Wall Street so Wall Street could resume lending to Main Street, but it did neither, at a cost to American taxpayers, so far, of over $300bn. The only clear beneficiaries have been the biggest Wall Street banks' executives, traders, directors, investors, and creditors.
Matt Ridle yscience writer
Underrated Did you know that the smallest Arctic sea-ice area since records began occurred in September 2007? Thought you did. Did you know that the largest Antarctic sea ice cover since records began occurred on the same date? Thought not. (Records began in 1979 in both cases, by the way.) Probably the least reported fact of the year 2008 is how many weather records were broken in the cold direction. The early part of 2008 saw an unusually cold winter in China and Afghanistan, a bitter freeze in northern India, a huge snowpack in northwest America that lasted well into summer, ice accumulation on Alaskan glaciers and a long Alpine skiing season. Then came summer, with the fewest days over 70F in Anchorage's history and the second fewest over 90 in Chicago's. Where I live a late spring led to a cool, wet summer which gave way to an early, cold autumn and reports of the first October snow in London for 70 years. I'm not saying the world's cooling; I am saying if records had been broken in the hot direction, you would have heard about a lot more about them.
Alasdair Robertsprofessor of public policy
Underrated Sometime during 2008, the world became, for the first time a world of city dwellers. The phenomenon of urbanization in the developing world will continue to be one of the most important trends of the next two decades. Between 2010 and 2030, the urban population of the less developed countries is expected to increase by about 1.4bn. That increase is substantially more than the total urban population of the developed world—now, and in 2030 too.
Developing countries will be pressed to build infrastructure to accommodate an additional population equal to the whole of the developed world's urban areas—in just two decades. The west's infrastructure boom of the 1950s-1960s—a response to an urban population increase of only 230m—will pale in comparison. And if infrastructure is not built? The continued growth of vast megaslums, in which millions are deprived of the most basic services (such as decent sewerage and water) and which become breeding grounds for disease and discontent. Culturally we will see the global decline of the rural myth: the appeal to an agrarian lifestyle as the repository of basic values (hard work, simplicity in lifestyle, respect for nature). By 2050, the three-quarters of the world's population that is urbanised will have little direct knowledge of what it means to live on the land. For most of us, our physical environment will be largely synthetic.
Steven Roseprofessor of biology
Overrated Embryonic stem cells (ESCs)—the endless claim that they will "solve" Alzheimer's. Parkinson's etc. At present such possibilities are far removed from practical application. No-one has solved the problems of harvesting, delivery, control of heterologous ESCs in experiments in animals yet, even though stem cell researchers and the British government ride roughshod over ethical considerations to drive human research forward.
Dominic Sandbrookhistorian & writer
Underrated & Overrated For all the fuss about David Tennant's Hamlet, I was even more impressed by his performance as Berowne in Love's Labour's Lost. It's not an easy part, but I thought he struck the perfect note: witty, infectious, mischievous, leavened with just a hint of melancholy. Shame on you, Jonathan Miller, for doubting him. And hats off to the RSC for 12 months of splendid entertainment—with a special mention for the all-day Histories at the Roundhouse, which left me breathless with admiration. By contrast, I'm not convinced Tennant's day job worked out quite so well this year. I loved the first three series of the returned Doctor Who, but when the larger-than-life chief writer, Russell T Davies, is in danger of eclipsing the star, then you know something's gone wrong. Fewer celebrities and fewer catchphrases, please—and a darker Doctor wouldn't go amiss either.
Underrated My political highlight of the year was a moment that few people seemed to notice—John McCain's concession speech after the US presidential election. After months of pretending to be an orthodox Republican, McCain seemed a much happier man now that he never had to talk to Sarah Palin again. Above all, though, he struck a movingly graceful note—and somehow the fact that he's such a wooden speaker made it seem all the more sincere.
Kate Saundersnovelist
Underrated It has been a good year for fiction, but fiction itself is underrated at the moment. The trouble is that fiction is unfashionable. Review space for novels is shrinking, and even the famous Richard-and-Judy effect can no longer be relied upon now that they've been relegated to an obscure cable channel. Though we are told this is changing, the British reading public is currently amusing itself with celebrity memoirs and misery-porn, possibly in the belief that a book is better value if "true" and not just made up. As QD Leavis observed, people like books that pander to the current taste in wish-fulfilment and escapism—nothing new about that—and these days it's all about "reality." But can you blame the customers, when the would-be bestsellers on offer are so unsatisfying? Huge numbers of novels are being published, but the percentage of good ones remains more or less the same as it ever was. We probably need a new generation of sexy young male novelists to make fiction trendy again.
Charles Saumarez Smithchief executive of the Royal Academy
Underrated Richard Fortey's book Dry Store Room No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum, which describes his long professional career as a paleontologist in South Kensington with great humour and tender care for the foibles of his fellow specialists in such a way that the book stands as an emblem of the place of the grumpy fundamentalist in modern organisations.
Siôn SimonLabour MP
Underrated Following an insouciantly gentle introduction last year, the glorious ascendancy of the new £20 note. Comparison with its predecessor is a masterclass in the power of subtle difference. In its time, the old one caused me no offence. It is relatively similar in both size and colour to the new one. But when I see a straggler now, poking out from a sheaf of its sleek, chic, successor, I'm appalled by its gaudy anachronism. It is my 40th year to heaven, and I have never before been impressed by a banknote. But this year I have constantly been struck by the crisp, clean, elegance of the new £20 note and rejoiced as it has driven out the old. A minor piece of good design which makes a tiny difference to millions of people's daily experience.
William Skidelskyjournalist
Underrated Zoe Heller's novel The Believers got mixed reviews and hasn't got close to any of the prizes—including, most glaringly, the Booker longlist. There's something remiss in this. It's a well-crafted, rather old-fashioned novel with strong characters and some very funny scenes. The problem may be that it's set in America, and British prize judges don't approve of English writers setting their books there; it's seen as getting above yourself.
Overrated Kevin Pieterson's allegedly galvanic impact on the English cricket team. It is true that, when he took over in the summer, there was an instant bounce: England won the final, "dead" test match against South Africa and then easily beat them in the one day series. Pieterson puffed out his chest and predicted we'd beat the Aussies next summer. On the evidence of England's performance in India so far (five consecutive one-day thrashings and two lost test matches so far), there is scant chance of that. Pieterson was a terrible choice for captain: he is too much of an egoist, too much of a showman. The best cricket captains tend to be introspective, even retiring types who subsume their personalities for the good of the team—men like Mike Brierley, Clive Lloyd and Michael Vaughan. With someone like Pieterson, there will always be a conflict between what's good for him and what's good for England; and you suspect that the former will usually win.
Anne-Marie Slaughterprofessor of politics
Underrated The de facto end of the G7. The US decision to invite the G20 to Washington in November effectively ended the long-running debate over the optimal expansion of the G8. The G12, G13, and G16 have all been proposed, but once the G20 was convened, its members cannot be disinvited from future meetings. It may not have either the optimal size or membership, but it is a better forum for the US due to the membership of South Korea and Australia, both of which would likely be excluded from smaller groupings.
Overrated The decline of US power. How many times can this story be written? Yet declinists resolutely ignore the evidence that neither China nor India is interested in stepping up to the global plate politically or even economically; that the dollar rose as even as credit markets froze and the US economy sank, amid speculation that the euro might not survive the crisis; that just as in 1945, the British and the Americans joined forces to prevent the crisis from getting worse, particularly for emerging markets, and to begin the process of reforming global institutions; and that the US is the worst possible global leader, except for all the others.
Will Strawwriter
Overrated The Bradley effect. In the final weeks of the US election campaign, you couldn't turn on network news without some talking head speculating on how much of Obama's lead in the polls was inflated by the lies of racists. The truth—as political scientists kept trying to make clear—was that the phenomenon had not occurred for many years, and since both Obama and McCain were credible candidates, a racist voter could disguise their racism by just saying they preferred McCain. The election proved the pollsters were absolutely spot on after all.
Underrated 1. Progressive ideas. In the 2006 midterm elections, the prevailing wisdom was that the only Democrats capable of flipping Republican Congresional seats were fiscally conservative, hawkish "blue dog" Democrats. In 2008, progressive candidates including Jeanne Shaheen in New Hampshire, Jeff Merkley in Oregon and the Udall cousins in New Mexico and Colorado won Senate seats with policies supporting equal rights, green reforms, and a doveish foreign policy. Obama also managed to avoid pandering on abortion or gun rights and still won handsomely.
2. Obama's use of algorithms: Obama received many headlines for his fundraising prowess and his recruitment of volunteers but it was what he did with these resources which was truly revolutionary. Building on a concept first used nationally by Karl Rove, Obama's team of techies used sophisticated statistical models to make predictions about voters based on their canvassing returns, publicly available information, and data they bought commercially. This meant that they didn't bother phoning or knocking on the doors of sworn Republicans or die heard Democrats and could spend more time focusing on the floating voters. As we now know, the strategy was unbelievably successful.
Amir Taherijournalist
Underrated The most underrated event of the year was the turn around in Iraq and the success of new Iraqi government to impose a timetable for the withdrawal of US-led coalition troops by the end of 2011. Just over a year ago, there was much of talk Iraqi being split into three or more mini-states or burning in an endless civil or sectarian war with "the gates of hell" opening for the rest of the middle east. Bookshops in the west were full of offerings with titles that included such words as "fiasco," "quagmire," "catastrophe," and "tragedy." Today, however, Iraq is preparing for municipal elections in January 2009 and a general election in 2010, its third since liberation. It is the only Arab country where freedom reigns. In August and September, those of us who attended a number of cultural events in several Iraqi cities, including a pan-Arab festival of art and literature, in Baghdad, were surprised by the western media's absence. Good news from Iraq is no news.
Arabella Weiractress & writer
Overrated While it may not be the most original event over which to heave my Yuletide bile it is so deserving I'm going to eschew the predictable fashion of picking an event no one can recall in order to make myself look like a superbrain who absorbsthe most obscure of stories throughout the year. The most overrated, overexposed, overdiscussed, overhyped event of the year in my view was Sachsgate. It was a pathetic, laddish prank beneath the gargantuan talents of both callers which no one would have paid any attention to, least of all the "victim," until the Daily Mail got hold of the story and rushed around town trying to whip up every single person with even the most tenuous connection to the event into a mob-mentality frenzy. It wasn't interesting. It certainly wasn't news. What it really was was the Mail, as Cameron's scion, having a go at BBC talent and, in particular, one who, perhaps ill-advisedly, made comedic use of his high salary. Brand shags the world and tells everyone about it. Ross wishes he shagged the world. Either way, no one cares, it's not important. The style of comedy is regrettable since it perpetuates a world in which "boys will be boys" is a catch-all excuse for that kind of behaviour—imagine if the calls had been made by two women, say, Lucy Porter and me? People would think we were mentally ill, not just a bit over the mark. Anyway, if it had been funny it would have been fine.
Trevor White j ournalist & food writer
Underrated Michael Pollan's manifesto, In Defence of Food, will eventually be regarded as a seminal statement of the culinary condition. For the moment, however, it is largely neglected in the country that eats more ready meals than the rest of Europe put together. Pollan is Malcolm Gladwell in a farmers' market: an engaging and passionate advocate of deeper understanding through simple choices. Eat, drink, worship.
Peter Wilbyjournalist
Overrated Barack Obama. A convincing (if unoriginal) orator, yes. But he isn't going to bring about a revolution, any more than Tony Blair was in 1997. He'd already reneged on promises before he was elected, not least his pledge to use only public finance in his campaign.
Underrated George Soros. Why politicians and economists don't listen to the people who play the financial markets most effectively, and particularly to the man who brought the pound to its knees in 1992, I don't know. But he has been right all year about the gravity of the financial crisis.
Frances Wilsonwriter
Underrated The best film ever made slipped in and out of the cinemas this summer almost without notice. Man on Wire, a documentary about Philippe Petit, who in 1974 erected a tightrope between the top of the twin towers on which he then promenaded, danced and lay resting, is about sublimity "Life should be lived on the edge," Petit reflects 35 years later, while the friends who were with him that day weep with emotion at the memory.
Overrated The annually over-rated cute kid, this year represented by Eoghan Quigg, who pushes the serious singers out of the running, is a tediously predictable feature of the otherwise glorious X-Factor.
Alan Wolfeprofessor of politics
Underrated Believe it or not, I actually found the coverage of Sarah Palin's nomination to be vice-president of the US under-hyped. True, the media coverage was blanketing. Yet no amount of media coverage could quite come up the true audacity of this event. Nothing had ever happened quite like it in my lifetime. A candidate for the American presidency, at a time of foreign and domestic turmoil, had nominated for vice-president a woman who had never read a newspaper and knew nothing, literally nothing, about national and international affairs. She had never been vetted. John McCain barely knew her. And yet there she was—and after the election, there she is. We will have Palin to deal with for some time. I once thought that there were levels to the amount of cynicism one could expect in politics. This one toppled all of my expectations.
Ken Worpolewriter & environmentalist
Underrated. Too long associated with sandal-wearing faddism, the folding bike has come of age, technically and now commercially. Ideal for that awkward journey between the single track railway station and the coastal footpath, or getting back into town from the suburban art gallery, hospital or cemetery. The true third way in transport policy.
Emily Youngsculptor
Underrated The establishment of a group of environmentally activist lawyers, called ClientEarth These people raise funds to do law, for the environment, for free. They have offices in London and Brussels and soon Warsaw, staffed by barristers and lawyers from around Europe. They take a pan-European view of environmental law, working to make sure that existing such laws are enforced, and that new legislation is effective and enforceable. There's something of David and Goliath about them, as there are some 20,000 paid corporate lobbyists in Brussels.
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Prospect's "overrated and underrated" events of the year are divided alphabetically, by author surname, into four parts: click here to read parts one, two, three and four.
