January / February 2025

January February 2025

Cas Mudde assesses the health of democracy and James Bloodworth explains the rise of polemicist Douglas Murray. In Ukraine, Jen Stout reports on the symbolism of Europe’s first skyscraper, while we present the shortlist of 25 Top Thinkers for 2025

Past issues

Credit: © Shutterstock

Democracy

Democracy is in a doom spiral—but it isn’t dead yet

The far right thrived in 2024, and the erosion of liberal democracy is the story of the century so far. It didn’t have to be this way

Editor’s Picks

Douglas Murray has reached stratospheric heights of popularity in the online right ecosystem. Image: Michelle Thompson

Saving the west, one polemic at a time

James Bloodworth

Illustration by Adam Howling

25 thinkers for an uncertain world

Derzhprom, a constructivist masterpiece, looks ahead of its time. Photo: Jen Stout

Concrete resistance: how one building symbolises Kharkiv’s defiance

Pioneering: Milton Keynes in Buckinghamshire. Image: A.P.S. (UK) / Alamy

Want to imagine the city of the future? Try Milton Keynes

Prospect’s books of the year 2024: Politics & Reportage

“Day Room” (1974) by Charlotte Johnson Wahl. Image: Estate of the artist

A mother’s work

Esther Rantzen: ‘I’m not seeking to shorten my life, only my death’

People

Theodor Meron has presided over dozens of war crimes trials and appeals. Image: Associated Press / Alamy Stock Photo

‘A world with no holocausts’: The Shoah survivor backing ICC prosecutions

Jessica Abrahams

Image: © DPA picture alliance / Alamy

Palestinian-Israeli politician Ayman Odeh: ‘You can’t beat the right without us’

Esther Rantzen: ‘I’m not seeking to shorten my life, only my death’

Image: Rutger Bregman

Rutger Bregman thinks our best days are ahead of us

How an end-of-life doula makes dying easier

Columns

Kim Leadbeater has proposed the Assisted Dying Bill. Image: Ian Davidson / Alamy Stock Photo

What makes a good death?

Illustration: Bill McConkey

The government needs help seeing the bigger picture

Paula Byrne’s diary: a Manhattan transfer

People arrive ahead of a campaign rally for Donald Trump at Madison Square Garden this October. Image: AP Photo / Julia Demaree Nikhinson

How to break the Maga spell

Illustration by Andy Smith

A trademark dispute that’s far from demure

Illustration: Vincent Kilbride

Polls are out, listening is in

Ethan Zuckerman

Regulars

The Prospect Grid: January/February 2025

Letters: January/February 2025 edition

Stephen Collins’s cartoon: the woke mind virus

Stephen Collins

The Generalist: January/February 2025

Illustration: Michael Rea

Kate Summerscale: True crime writers need to remember the victims were real

Features

Credit: © Shutterstock

Democracy is in a doom spiral—but it isn’t dead yet

Derzhprom, a constructivist masterpiece, looks ahead of its time. Photo: Jen Stout

Concrete resistance: how one building symbolises Kharkiv’s defiance

Illustration by Adam Howling

25 thinkers for an uncertain world

Pioneering: Milton Keynes in Buckinghamshire. Image: A.P.S. (UK) / Alamy

Want to imagine the city of the future? Try Milton Keynes

High visibility: housebuilding is a prominent theme in Labour’s agenda for government. Image: Forsyth / Getty Images

Labour’s housing conundrum

Mexico's president, Claudia Sheinbaum. Image by: Stephania Corpi/Bloomberg via Getty Images.

Can one woman beat Mexico’s cartels?

Deborah Bonello

Douglas Murray has reached stratospheric heights of popularity in the online right ecosystem. Image: Michelle Thompson

Saving the west, one polemic at a time

James Bloodworth

Image: RIBA Collections / GRANGER - Historical Picture Archive, Florilegius, Ratchapoom Anupongpan, Alamy / kosmofish, Shutterstock / Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid / Composite by David McAllister, Prospect

Our true slaving history

Illustration by Timothy Hunt

How the Royal Society of Literature lost the plot

Patrick Marnham

Illustration: Nick Chaffe.

Unicorns and dinosaurs are everywhere!

Priya Khanchandani

Culture

The next thing

An unfinished illustration made by Tolkien in 1915 to accompany his poem “Why the Man in the Moon Came Down Too Soon” © THE TOLKIEN TRUST

Tolkien the timekeeper

© Colin McPherson / Corbis via Getty Images

Mystery writer

Ellen Peirson-Hagger

© Sueddeutsche Zeitung Photo / Alamy

Lines of beauty

The exterior of the Horse and Groom pub in Guildford, after it was bombed in 1974. Image: Associated Press / Alamy

The truth of the Guildford bombings

Prospect’s books of the year 2024: Politics & Reportage

Prospect’s books of the year 2024: Ideas

Prospect’s books of the year 2024: Lives

Prospect’s books of the year 2024: History

© Monika Ritterhaus

William Kentridge’s ship of fools

Fiammetta Rocco

“Day Room” (1974) by Charlotte Johnson Wahl. Image: Estate of the artist

A mother’s work

© Atanas Paskalev

Oh, yes it is!

© Everett Collection Inc. / Alamy

Badwill to some men

Imogen West-Knights

Classical notes: Le style français

Lives

Illustration by Clara Nicoll

Life in Greek time is relaxing my nervous system

I feel less like a black sheep in my all-white village than in London

Illustration by Clara Nicoll

I’m a boring gen Z—so I tried sober October

Illustration by Clara Nicoll

Marching for our farming heritage

Illustration by Clara Nicoll

In times of peril, friends are there to send memes

Illustration by Clara Nicoll

The individuals who change the course of humanity

Illustration by Clara Nicoll

How cricket is changing children‘s lives in Lebanon

Michael Brearley