August / September 2019

August / September 2019 issue

Past issues

Essays

Edmund de Waal's works are on display at the Frick Collection in New York, and will be show at the British Museum next year. Illustration: Tim McDonagh

A ceramicist of nowhere: Edmund de Waal's art of empathy

How Donald Trump is breaking the law

Dahlia Lithwick

Wildness as therapy: Barisdale, Knoydart, in the Scottish Highlands. Image: Venture Mòr

How the great outdoors is transforming treatment of mental health

Tony Blair in Basra, Iraq, in 2004. Photo: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

Tony Blair is having second thoughts on war

Steve Bloomfield

Welcome to Prospect's 2019 Top Thinkers. Photo: Prospect composite

The world’s top 50 thinkers 2019

Sourdough has become more and more popular—but is it really better than a slice of white? Photo: Prospect composite

The battle over bread

The future of Conservatism

Tim Montgomerie

All about towns: new report on harnessing hope in Britain’s communities

Revisiting fairytales shows that their characters cannot be caged between the covers of their books. Illustration by Alberto Manguel

What childhood fairytales can teach adults

Alberto Manguel

The Huawei dilemma

The courtroom of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Photo: Rainer Jensen/DPA/PA Images

Helena Kennedy vs Jonathan Sumption: Are our human rights laws working?

H Kennedy and J Sumption

Elephant And Castle shopping centre. Photo: Chronicle / Alamy Stock Photo

The rise and fall of the high-density madmen

A nighttime scene in Oldham

Hope amid hard times in Oldham

Jennifer Williams

Regulars

The Prospect editorial: Stop and think

Brief Encounter: Simon Armitage—"I’m in awe of happy people"

Edmund de Waal's works are on display at the Frick Collection in New York, and will be show at the British Museum next year. Illustration: Tim McDonagh

A ceramicist of nowhere: Edmund de Waal's art of empathy

Speed Data: falling life expectancy—an American tragedy

Angus Deaton and Anne Case

Stephen Collins's cartoon: Question Time from Armageddon

Stephen Collins

The Prospect puzzle: August/September 2019

The Prospect crossword: August/September 2019

Hannah Berry's cartoon: Sharing with others

Opinions

Are the Brics a safe bet?

Economics and investment: emerging opportunities in emerging markets

Protestors break into the legislative council building on 1st July. Photos: Rex/Shutterstock

View from Hong Kong: "They have betrayed us"

Timothy McLaughlin

Photo: Kirsty O'Connor/PA Wire/PA Images

Policy report: Apprenticeships—how to provide the vocational training Britain needs

Photo: Christoph Schmidt/DPA/PA Images

High-level apprenticeships will help young people—and business

To keep up with our international competitors, getting apprenticeships right will be crucial. Photo: PAULA SOLLOWAY / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

When it comes to skills, basic training can have a big impact

Economics and investment: the new liquidity trap

Photo: WILLIAM BARTON / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

Austerity: it came, conquered then disappeared—without any argument

New statistics show few rape cases go to court. Photo: PA

Attacks on the justice system do not come out of nowhere—it's time for the UK to fight for openness

Journalists view the debate between Conservative Party leadership candidates. Photo: PA

The new PM will depend on Whitehall for survival—whether he knows it yet or not

Eventually, I gave up on taking the Odyssey abroad and began packing Agatha Christie novels. Photo: Flickr/ Creative Commons 2.0

The case for only taking books you really want to read on holiday

Caroline Crampton

Arts & Books

Clive James in the BBC TV series Postcard from Miami, 1989. Photo: PA

The Great Barrier Reef, bird-spotting and an opera about Boris Johnson

The best podcasts in August and September 2019—Confessions with Giles Fraser and visiting Maida Vale

Charlotte Runcie

A still from <i>The Great Hack</i> by Jehane Noujaim and Karim Amer, an official selection of the Documentary Premieres program at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute

Succession and a Confession—the best television in August and September 2019

Illustration: Chris Tilbury

Asghar and Zahra—fiction extract

Emelie Jonsson in Aniara

The best films in August and September 2019—The Souvenir and Aniara

Gerald Barry's The Intelligence Park

The best classical and opera in August and September—Grimeborn and The Intelligence Park

Alexandra Coghlan

Alex Jennings and Lindsay Duncan in Hansard

The best theatre in August and September—Hansard and Caryl Churchill

Michael Coveney

The best art exhibitions in summer 2019—Antony Gormley and the undead Bauhaus

Emma Crichton-Miller

The best art exhibitions in summer 2019—Antony Gormley and the undead Bauhaus

Emma Crichton-Miller

The only thing keeping America safe © David Walters/Zuma Press/PA Images

A forbidding and magnificent American epic

One for the road?

A delicious satire on the magazine industry is also a study in addiction

The Japanese march into Singapore in 1942

A haunting and vivid account of Singapore's fall

Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess in David Nicholls's adapdation of his own novel, One Day

David Nicholls's new literary page-turner

Blame the hippies

David Brooks on the ugly love-child of liberalism

Vietnamese women in training, 1968 © Christian Simonpietri/Sygma/Corbis

A writer who finds beauty in everything

Tessa Hadley's novels are often called "reassuring". Photo: PA

Riskless business: Tessa Hadley's new novel plays it too safe

The former Booker prize winner new fantasy novel is sure to attract Netflix adaptations. Photo: Cheese Scientist/Alamy Stock Photo

Black Panther meets Lord of the Rings: the unmet ambitions of Marlon James's new novel

“Vasily Grossman covered the battle of Stalingrad and the Soviet advance to Berlin”. Photo: © HERITAGE IMAGE PARTNERSHIP LTD / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

Vasily Grossman and the novel art of speaking truth to power

Alasdair Gray in front of a mural at Oran Mor. Image: Murdo MacLeod ©

Alasdair Gray's literary socialism

Stephanie Boland

Alasdair Gray in front of a mural at Oran Mor. Image: Murdo MacLeod ©

Alasdair Gray's literary socialism

Stephanie Boland

Society and Culture

Winston Churchill and Anthony Eden. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

"A man who is not trusted by anyone... can never be prime minister for long"

Illustration: Kate Hazell

Sleeping beneath the stars—the art of camping without a tent

Tiger Woods. Photo: Keith Allison

Backing the overdog—why we prefer to support winners

Benjamin Markovits

Retweeting. Illustration: Kate Hazell

I quit Twitter and it made me happier. So why have I gone back?

Cathy Rentzenbrink

How Roman Britain invented modern Britain

Charlotte Higgins

My friend was coy about it—but plenty of celebrities, and tech moguls, credit their nannies with their careers. Illustration by Kate Hazell

The complex, hidden politics of hiring a nanny

Hephzibah Anderson