Ideas

The New Tragic Age

The New Age of Tragedy

Great-power rivalry, resource scarcity and the crumbling of the liberal rules-based order.

By Robert D Kaplan, John Gray and Helen Thompson

Ideas

Our new financial masters

How asset managers work in the shadows – and shape all of our lives.

By Brett Christophers

The Weekend Essay

Dangerous minds

How Patrick Deneen and Yoram Hazony’s post-liberal theology went global.

By Suzanne Schneider and Yotam Hotam

The Weekend Essay

Do we really need Rawls?

Daniel Chandler’s much-hyped new book says that, in an age of polarisation, the American philosopher offers a blueprint for society.

By William Davies

Ideas

Why Tocqueville matters

Travel was a vital part of the French thinker’s political philosophy, but this has largely been forgotten in today’s secluded…

By Nick Burns

Culture

Who is criticism for?

Seth Rogen’s protest against bad reviews misunderstands the role of the critic in the fight against mediocrity.

By Lola Seaton

Books

The problem with Peter Frankopan’s theory of history

The Earth Transformed seeks to tell the story of climate change without confronting global capitalism. The result is a book…

By Geoff Mann

The Weekend Essay

Who is afraid of Martin Heidegger?

Why the most radioactive philosopher of the 20th century still speaks to us.

By Lyndsey Stonebridge

Ideas

The revolution will not be brought to you by ChatGPT

Robots never took your job, and neither will chatbots.

By Aaron Benanav

The Weekend Essay

The Washington consensus is dead

Europe, China and the US have all rejected free trade and globalisation. Protectionism is back.

By Angela Nagle

Climate

Summer at the end of the world

The world is close to collapse. But can our love of summer save it?

By Richard Seymour

Environment

Why climate despair is a luxury

Those facing flood and fire can’t afford to lose hope. Neither should we.

By Rebecca Solnit

Ideas

Simone Weil’s great awakening

How the French activist and thinker forged a radical new philosophy for an age of war and ideological conflict.

By Wolfram Eilenberger

The Weekend Essay

Why do you love capitalism?

Johan Norberg’s The Capitalist Manifesto is a feeble defence of a system under attack.

By Michael Lind

Big Tech

Hegel against the machines

The philosopher’s ideas on intelligence have staggering implications for the future of AI.

By Jensen Suther

Ideas

Why affirmative action failed

Higher education is not an adequate means to achieve a more just society.

By Nick Burns

Europe

The left must embrace law and order

In France and elsewhere, everyday insecurity hurts the poor much more than the rich.

By Slavoj Žižek

The Weekend Essay

What Gen X feminism forgets

A recent batch of books explores the anger of mid-life feminists towards their millennial and Gen Z counterparts. But are…

By Melissa Denes

Ideas

The Marx whisperer

The geographer David Harvey’s videos on Capital have made him an internet intellectual. But he has been observing the carnage…

By Owen Hatherley

Big Tech

Whoever wins, we lose

Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg’s cage fight is a neo-feudal nightmare.

By Alex Hochuli

Ideas

Settling scores with God: Leszek Kolakowski at the End of History

How the Marxist-turned-Catholic-conservative remains the pre-eminent thinker for our age of tragedy.

By Madoc Cairns

Ideas

The 15-minute city is a working-class nightmare

A car-free lifestyle is only possible for those whose profession and income permit it.

By Michael Lind

The Weekend Essay

The delusion of a new European empire

Old forms of thinking about world order are mutating in new conditions.

By Quinn Slobodian

Ideas

Is another American revolution inevitable?

An interview with Peter Turchin.

By Will Lloyd

Ideas

The sovereign individual in Downing Street

In 1997 a business book predicted tech disruption, the alt-right and the rise of the super-rich. Now, in Rishi Sunak,…

By Quinn Slobodian