Not Just a Phase: Rewriting Hungary’s Past

Nora Berend and Christopher Clark, 20 November 2014

This summer​, a new monument appeared in Budapest’s Liberty Square. Amid a copse of truncated white marble pillars stands the metal figure of a slender young man. Wrapped from hips to...

Read more about Not Just a Phase: Rewriting Hungary’s Past

Labour Vanishes

Ross McKibbin, 20 November 2014

The Labour Party may be the largest party after the next election, and it may even secure a majority, but it could also do very badly.

Read more about Labour Vanishes

West End Boy: Breivik & Co

Adam Shatz, 20 November 2014

Before he went on his mass killing spree in 2011, Anders Behring Breivik was a regular at the Palace Grill in Oslo West.

Read more about West End Boy: Breivik & Co

Whose side is Turkey on? The Battle for Kobani

Patrick Cockburn, 6 November 2014

In Kobani, for the first time, Isis was fighting an enemy that in important respects resembled itself.

Read more about Whose side is Turkey on? The Battle for Kobani

Necessity or Ideology? Legal Aid

Frederick Wilmot-Smith, 6 November 2014

Legal aid – the state subsidy of legal services – is supposed to ensure that it isn’t only the rich who can vindicate their rights.

Read more about Necessity or Ideology? Legal Aid

Le Journal and Le Club: Mediapart

Tariq Ali, 23 October 2014

Walking​ from the Bastille to the rue Saint-Antoine in Paris a few weeks ago, I was thinking how swiftly the last few decades have taken their revenge on the past. The spectacle that...

Read more about Le Journal and Le Club: Mediapart

Diary: Ebola

Paul Farmer, 23 October 2014

The Ebola virus is terrifying because it infects most of those who care for the afflicted and kills most of those who fall ill: at least, that’s the received wisdom.

Read more about Diary: Ebola

Who will stop them? The Neo-Elite

Owen Hatherley, 23 October 2014

As a media personality, Owen Jones is unusual and interesting. As a writer, however, he can be frustratingly unreflective.

Read more about Who will stop them? The Neo-Elite

The Four Degrees: Climate Change

Paul Kingsnorth, 23 October 2014

It was​ at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro that governments first agreed to do something about climate change. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, agreed at the summit,...

Read more about The Four Degrees: Climate Change

Tower of Skulls: Baghdad

Malise Ruthven, 23 October 2014

In​ 2006, when Baghdad was mired in sectarian killings and the murder rate was more than a thousand a month, Justin Marozzi spoke to Donny George, the director of the National Museum of Iraq,...

Read more about Tower of Skulls: Baghdad

Short Cuts: Human Rights à la Carte

Francis FitzGibbon, 23 October 2014

Things​ aren’t going well for Chris Grayling, the secretary of state for justice. His ‘Spartan’ prisons policy and sacking of hundreds of warders coincided with a rise in...

Read more about Short Cuts: Human Rights à la Carte

The Amazon basin​ is roughly the size of the continental United States and contains more than a thousand shifting tributaries. If it had been found at the edge of human settlement, it would...

Read more about Don’t look at trees: Da Cunha’s Amazon

On Hunger Strike: On Hunger Strike

Omar Robert Hamilton, 9 October 2014

After​ the shock and awe tactics of the Rabaa massacre last summer, when Egypt’s military regime murdered around a thousand supporters of the deposed president, Mohamed Morsi, the rolling...

Read more about On Hunger Strike: On Hunger Strike

In Farageland

James Meek, 9 October 2014

There’s plenty of evidence in Thanet to support Ukip’s general proposition that local power is being diminished while the power of remote, faceless authorities is growing.

Read more about In Farageland

Short Cuts: In Symi

Caroline Phillips, 9 October 2014

As we stepped off​ the ferry onto the Aegean island of Symi in late August, our thoughts were on sunbathing and sailing. But the first thing we saw was a group of what we soon discovered were...

Read more about Short Cuts: In Symi

Many American Jews dislike the suggestion that there is any tension between their commitment to liberalism and their Zionism.

Read more about Feeling Good about Feeling Bad: Liberal Zionism

LRB contributors

LRB Contributors, 9 October 2014

Polling day​, which we’d waited for in a fervour, was odd and quiet. Mist pressed at the windows. I felt convalescent and washed out, and fair enough, for the last ten days I’d...

Read more about After the Referendum

Across the Durand Line: The Durand Line

Owen Bennett-Jones, 25 September 2014

It was said that al-Qaida must not be allowed to hold territory in Syria, but both an al-Qaida affiliate and Isis have been doing just that, and it wasn’t until earlier this month that Obama announced...

Read more about Across the Durand Line: The Durand Line