August 2017

Essays

The Prospect Editorial: The financial crash can't explain everything, but it comes close

Tom Clark

Bake Off, craft ale, historical novels: How the financial crash sent us on a headlong retreat into nostalgia

Hephzibah Anderson

Could a row over football television rights bring down the Argentinian government?

David Goldblatt & Alex Dean

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and Health Minister Andreas Xanthos in 2017. Photo: NurPhoto/SIPA USA/PA Images

How the financial crash brought extreme polarisation to politics

Tom Clark

Look out, May: individual MPs now call the shots in parliament

Martha Gill

Occupy Wall Street activists clash with police in New York. Photo: Christina Horsten/DPA/PA Images

Ten years on, how did the guilty men of the financial crash get away with it?

Ben Chu

Richard Fuld, the CEO of Lehman Brothers. Photo: REX/SHUTTERSTOCK

The banking crisis revealed a widespread problem in our culture—for which we are all culpable

Julian Baggini

No austerity here: The extension of the Jubilee Campus at the University of Nottingham. Photo: Arcaid/UIG Via Getty Images

Degrees of failure: why it's time to reconsider how we run our universities

Alison Wolf

Tough day: A broker looks at his screens at the Frankfurt Stock Exchange on the day Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy. Photo: THOMAS LOHNES/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

The secret history of the banking crisis

Adam Tooze

Haruhiko Kuroda, governor of the Bank of Japan in 2015. Photo: KIMIMASA MAYAMA/EPA/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK

Why the next financial crisis is closer than you think

Helen Thompson

Enough is enough: Michael Gove suggested people have "had enough of experts" during the EU referendum campaign. Photo: JASON ALDEN/BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES

Was Michael Gove right? Have we had enough of experts?

Helen Jackson & Paul Ormerod

Joseph Rowntree Foundation claim the Think Tank of the Year trophy, plus the customary “tank top for the top tank. Photo: Bob Fallon

Think Tank Awards 2017: Who won?

Prospect Team

Regulars

Stephen Collins's cartoon: Brexit negotiations

Stephen Collins

Minister for Drought Denis Howell. Photo: SWNS.com

"What an unbuttoning!" The best historical accounts of long, hot summers

Ian Irvine

Speed data: Just how polluted is London's air?

Prospect Team

From civil unrest to Formula One: The best films on this month

Francine Stock

"Sumptuously romantic": the best ballet and opera this month

Neil Norman

"Ice, fire, fantasy and fun—and worms, presumably." The best science exhibitions this month

Anjana Ahuja

"The electronic age has triggered epistemological chaos": Daniel Dennett on the information free-for-all, atheism and the point of philosophy

Prospect Team

Matisse's Safrano Roses at the Window (1925). ©Succession H. Matisse/DACS 2017

"Wry portraits of a country in political upheaval"—The art exhibitions to see this month

Emma Crichton-Miller

From King Lear to the King's Theatre—the best plays on this month

Michael Coveney

"If the Proms is all-consuming, then Edinburgh festival is highlights." The best classical music this summer

Alexandra Coghlan

Photo: Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images for SiriusXM

Eddie Izzard: "Human rights need to be more important than religious rights"

Prospect Team

Can you crack our crossword? The Generalist by Didymus: issue 257

Prospect Team

Test your wits: Puzzles and Enigmas by Barry R Clarke, issue 257

Prospect Team

Zoe Williams and Dierdre McCloskey go head to head

The Duel: Is inequality the root of all social ills?

Deirdre McCloskey & Zoe Williams

Listen: Headspace #12—Experts on trial

Tom Clark

Opinions

Photo: Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire/PA Images

How do you revive a city? This is what New York could learn from London

Andrew Adonis

Will Qatar be reduced to a Saudi client state?

Anatol Lieven

Tom Tugendhat: the next Tory leader? Photo:

Why the next Tory leader needs to be young

Asa Bennett

David Omand, former GCHQ chief. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

David Omand, former GCHQ chief: Cyberattacks are the new normal

Alex Dean

Chancellor Philip Hammond. Photo: Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire/PA Images

Austerity simply doesn't work—its death is long overdue

Robert Skidelsky

Preparing to demolish another belief. Photo: IAN FORSYTH/GETTY IMAGES

How Corbyn learned to compromise

Stephen Bush

Photo: Matt Crossick/Matt Crossick/Empics Entertainment

Grenfell will force Britain to confront its greatest failure

Maya Goodfellow

Sarah Blaffer Hrdy (left) and Patricia Gowaty (right) corrected myths about female animals. Photo: courtesy of the author/Hrdy/Gowaty

Bluebirds, babies, and orgasms: the women scientists who fought Darwinism's sexist myths

Angela Saini

Arts & Books

Tom Stoppard: "Every time I blink, there's a play waiting to be written." Photo: David Corio/Redferns Via Getty Images

Tom Stoppard's heartfelt high jinks

Andrew Dickson

Why are some people so reluctant to have their children vaccinated?

Manjit Kumar

A new novel explores the awkwardness that comes with ageing

Matthew Adams

Working-class fight-back: Albert Finney in the film of Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. ©Lion/Kobal/Rex/Shutterstock

Why is there so little anger in fiction today?

DJ Taylor

Has fiction left the working-classes behind?

Sameer Rahim

Elif Batuman's new coming-of-age novel blurs the line between memoir and fiction

Anthony Cummins

Neel Mukherjee's new novel is a searing account of state oppression and Communist terror

Tanjil Rashid

Colm Tóibín new novel reimagines of the story of the house of Atreus—but dwells in a place of its own

Jane Shilling

What a new novel about three friends growing up in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq can tell us about human nature

Rachel Halliburton

In "Conversations with Friends," Sally Rooney captures the pain and pleasure of first loves

Arifa Akbar

"The flow is less Beckett, more Joyce." Review: Solar Bones by Mike McCormack

Chris Moss

The Prospect short story: The Americans by Viet Thanh Nguyen

Viet Thanh Nguyen

Edward Docx’s "Let Go My Hand" is a road trip story with a difference

Houman Barekat

Fiona McFarlane's new short story collection explores secrets—and the terrors of childhood

Sian Norris

Photo: Ikon Images/Getty Images, John Wildgoose

What they don't teach you at Harvard Business School

Howard Davies

"Many interviewed here cling to hope. Others have fallen into despair." Review: Voices from Syria by Wendy Pearlman

Sameer Rahim

How "witchcraft" came to obsess political and religious authorities

Ian Irvine

How the Second World War helps explain our world

Ben Wilson

A new golden age? Anthony Joshua triumphs over Wladimir Klitschko

Boxing's glory days are over—but writers still come back for more

Kasia Boddy

Chris Patten's new "sort of memoir" almost comes off

Alex Dean

Chris Patten's new "sort of memoir" almost comes off

Alex Dean

Are we witnessing the end of Europe as we know it?

Nicholas Earl

Robert Winder's new book "The Last Wolf" contains a message for Brexiteers

Burhan Wazir

Single entendre music: (l-r) Duff McKagan, Slahs, Axl Rose, Izzy Stradlin and Steven Adler. Photo: Paul Natkin/Getty Images/Natasharazina

How Guns N' Roses killed rock'n'roll

Jay Elwes

Society and Culture

Lobster and Campari cake: what it meant to cook for my dying father

Wendell Steavenson

How wine-makers produce emotions in the drinker

Barry Smith

Why the Innovative Finance Isa is entering the mainstream of DIY investing

Andy Davis

The hardest thing about gardening? It might be learning the gardeners' lingo

Sam Leith

Freud isn't sexist—in fact, psychoanalysis is feminist

Anna Blundy