Memories of Jewish suffering at the hands of Nazis are the foundation on which most descriptions of extreme ideology and atrocity, and most demands for recognition and reparations, have been built. Universalist reference points are in danger of disappearing as the Israeli military massacres and starves Palestinians, while denouncing as antisemitic or champions of Hamas all those who plead with it to desist.
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Acid house wasn’t a genre of dance music so much as a new way of experiencing it: audiences dressed down, parties ran all night and – so dancers reported – social divisions disintegrated, helped along by the empathetic rush of the new drug.
The crack in the promise of the Academy Awards is that American pictures don’t cut it any more. ‘Hollywood’ (if you are prepared to believe that kingdom still exists) doesn’t know how to deliver a pointed universality that can upset us.
‘Make Hungary Great Again’ is an effective summation of Orbánism; many Hungarians would like back the tracts of territory lost with the collapse of the Habsburg Empire at the end of the First World War.
Simmonds’s books and newspaper strips have been a compass for generations of British women, as sure a gauge of who and where they are as Marks and Spencer knickers.
China’s sheer size, and the revival of decentralised decision-making since the early post-Mao decades, means that a great deal of economic statecraft occurs at lower levels: provinces, cities, districts, counties, townships and so on.
A recycling centre is a good place to go for a glimpse into the 21st-century industrial sublime. Standing above the maze of conveyor belts, you can watch as the relics from a thousand domestic scenes – broken toys, bank statements, vodka bottles, handwritten notes – float serenely into the jaws of the machines.
The notion of existential lack, of a hole that yearns to be filled, of the human need to be made whole through connection with another, is a fundamental and recurrent preoccupation in Coetzee’s fiction.
The letters page from London Review of Books Vol. 46 No. 5 (Friday 23 February 2024)
Among all the new forms of Conservatism springing up in the run up to the next election, Kruger's New Conservatives appear to be the most religious in their "holy war against the Left"
Lever founder David Sirota shares some exciting news about the future of Lever podcasts.
Seventy-nine years ago today, on February 22, 1943, Hans and Sophie Scholl — members of the resistance group ‘Die Weisse Rose’ — were killed by the Nazis. Courage is not anything very common, and the value we put on it is a witness to its rarity. Courage is the capability to confront fear, as when […]
- by Aeon Video
- by Monica Westin
- by Shayla Love
Gaza’s health system was on the brink of collapse long before October 2023. The densely populated coastal enclave, home to more than two million Palestinians, had been under siege by Israel for 16 years, a policy which tightly limited the movement of people, food, fuel, building materials and more in and out. A 2022 briefing […]
It's time for politicians to show leadership and give away some power, writes Compass' Frances Foley
The Government appears keen to limit climate protestors' legal justifications for direct action
Dario Bonciani and Johannes Fischer The UK economy has been hit by significant terms-of-trade shocks, most notably the rise in energy prices following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. These shocks have created substantial and persistent inflationary pressure in many countries. Such upheavals bring increased uncertainty about the future, making macroeconomic forecasting more challenging. In this … Continue reading Forecasting UK inflation in the presence of large global shocks
A new report by digital campaigners, Open Rights Group, has found that the data of people who are referred to the Prevent programme is being widely shared, and that data is being retained for years even when referrals are marked ‘no further action’. Thousands of Prevent referrals are made each year ostensibly to “support people […]
Thousands of Prevent referrals are made each year ostensibly to “support people susceptible to radicalisation”. The overwhelmingly majority do not meet the threshold for a Channel intervention (a multi-agency deradicalisation programme). Despite this, the data of Prevent referees is retained and shared across multiple databases, with potentially harmful outcomes. Through analysing responses to freedom of […]
When I was in London recently, I noticed an increase in people in the street who were clearly not working and looked to be in severe hardship from my last visit in 2020. Of course, in the intervening period the world has endured (is enduring) a major pandemic that has permanently compromised the health status…
From the start of the conflict I have been most concerned, not with the bombing, as bad as it is (6x as much as the US dropped on Iraq during the last war in postag-stamp sized open-air prison) but by the cut-off of food and water. Israeli protesters have been blocking much of what little humanitarian aid is sent, the main aid agency has been defunded by the largest donor countries, most Gazans are starving and most of what little water they have is dirty.
He’ll come for “the good ones” next At last night’s S. Carolina town hall, Trump was asked what the actual plan was for the rounding up of immigrants: Here’s one of his lackeys today: The Washington Post reports today: Faced with a surge of migrant families at the U.S.-Mexico border in 2018 and 2019, Donald Trump’s White House discussed ways to more aggressively deploy the resources and the might of the U.S. military. Aides and officials spoke privately about detaining migrants on military bases and flying them out of the country on military planes — ideas that the Pentagon headed off. Throughout his presidency, Trump himself would frequently demand to send troops to the border and catch people crossing. “He was obsessed with having the military involved,” said a former senior administration official, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private discussions. That approach and unfinished business have taken on renewed significance and urgency as the country confronts another migrant crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border, and as Trump closes in on the Republican presidential nomination.