It was said of one of Neville Chamberlain’s ministerial appointments that it was the most improbable since Caligula made his horse a consul. Jeremy Corbyn’s election to the...
Notwithstanding the 55:45 split between unionists and nationalists in the independence referendum last autumn, the major – if unacknowledged – cleavage in Scottish politics lies...
It’s hard to come up with a good analogy for climate change but that doesn’t stop people from trying. We seem to want some way of framing the problem that makes a decent outcome...
On 21 August a UK-piloted Reaper drone – an unmanned aerial vehicle, remotely controlled from RAF Waddington, an airbase south of Lincoln, a few miles off the A1 to Doncaster –...
August in Japan is a month for remembering war. Ceremonies marking the atomic bombings of Hiroshima (6 August) and Nagasaki (9 August) are followed by a commemoration of Japan’s...
Jashodaben was married at 17; her husband was a year or two older. It was an arranged match. They were both from the same underprivileged Hindu caste in Gujarat; they separated after three years...
The fall of Gorbachev brought Dmitri Furman’s work as Russia’s foremost student of religious systems to a reluctant end. Clear-sighted about what was coming under Yeltsin, Furman...
The fact that more British Muslims are fighting for Islamic State than for the British army demands an explanation.
We can expect more Greek drama before too long: the real struggle over the Eurozone – and the EU more broadly – is just beginning.
It’s easy to confuse democracy with democracy. Having a party’s members elect its leader is clearly more democratic than leaving the decision up to MPs or union bosses. But that...
For Greeks of virtually all political persuasions the EU was once seen as a family to which one must belong.
Had things been different, last year’s obituaries might have read like this. Although known for his charm, wit and talent as mimic and raconteur, Jeremy Thorpe will be chiefly remembered...
‘Why is there no socialism in the United States?’ the German sociologist Werner Sombart asked himself in 1906 – it was also the title of his most famous book. The question...
American intelligence saw Islamic State coming and was not only relaxed about the prospect but, it appears, positively interested in it.
In Holloway prison, in March 1909, Constance Lytton decided to carve the words ‘Votes for Women’ across her chest. She had been locked up for taking part in suffragette protests...
Everyone can be a socialist today, even Bill Gates: it suffices to profess the need for some kind of harmonious social unity, for a common good and for the care of the poor and downtrodden.
The fall of Tal Abyad is the latest Kurdish victory in the ‘war within a war’ being waged between Islamic State fighters and the military wing of the PYD.
Harold Koh is the former dean of Yale Law School and an expert in human rights law. As the State Department’s senior lawyer between 2009 and 2013, he provided the Obama administration...