Issue 131
February 2007
Contents
A rough guide to carbon trading
25th February 2007 — Issue 131
Are carbon trading schemes the best way to tackle climate change? Trading is central to meeting Kyoto targets. But the EU scheme, the world's biggest, has had a bumpy start and questions remain about the long-term viability of trading
The library of Google
25th February 2007 — Issue 131
The Google search engine is making many of the world's great libraries available online. Is this an advance for scholarship, or, as a French librarian argues, a victory for Anglo-Saxon bias and trivialisation?
Europe's true stories
25th February 2007 — Issue 131
The EU urgently needs to give a new account of itself. Old-fashioned grand narrative and Euromyth will no longer do the trick. How about a true and self-critical story woven around six goals?
Identity and migration
25th February 2007 — Issue 131
Modern liberal societies have weak collective identities. Postmodern elites, especially in Europe, feel that they have evolved beyond identities defined by religion and nation. But if our societies cannot assert positive liberal values, they may be challenged by migrants who are more sure of who they are
Comment (1)Feminists in burkhas
25th February 2007 — Issue 131
Many liberals backed the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, believing it would end women's servitude. I met dozens of women, from a young MP to a serial killer, to discover whether things are better
Barack Obama
25th February 2007 — Issue 131
His unusual background and his ability to use it to articulate a hopeful version of the American dream have turned Barack Obama into a political star. But is the US ready for its first black president?
Michael Rawlins
25th February 2007 — Issue 131
The chairman of Nice—the body that decides which drugs the NHS can afford—on the Herceptin row, how Nice calculates the value of a human life and the pharmaceutical industry's expensive drugs crisis
To the estate born
25th February 2007 — Issue 131
Lynsey Hanley's "intimate history" of British estates is strong on autobiography and social history, less so on the racial element of modern public housing
The South Side's dark side
25th February 2007 — Issue 131
A protégé of Steven "Freakonomics" Levitt gets under the skin of Chicago's underground economy. It's a pity he didn't have a better editor
Tightening the green belt
25th February 2007 — Issue 131
Britain's cities need to grow. It's time to start building on the green belt
Technology and frustration
25th February 2007 — Issue 131
Functionally, the iPhone is nothing new. But if it takes off, it could herald a transformation of new media
An integrated France?
25th February 2007 — Issue 131
A new book dispels the notion that France's Muslims are intent on forging a society distinct from the mainstream
The serious comedian
25th February 2007 — Issue 131
Zachary Leader's superb biography paints Kingsley Amis as a master of measured satire and wild invective
Slower technology
25th February 2007 — Issue 131
Technology means wood and corrugated iron as well as IT and gadgetry
Swords to spaceships
25th February 2007 — Issue 131
We should divert the skills and cash of the arms industry into space exploration
Slow journalism
25th February 2007 — Issue 131
Why doesn't Britain have a culture of serious non-fiction journalism like the US?
Being Frank
25th February 2007 — Issue 131
Frank Johnson transcended class but believed in its continuing power
Rise of the gripe site
25th February 2007 — Issue 131
How two men and a website in Colchester humbled one of the oil industry giants
The skull beneath the skin
25th February 2007 — Issue 131
Mixing high-flown philosophy with sickening violence, Derek Raymond's crime novels have long been neglected. Now, finally, they are being republished
Prophetic fallacies
25th February 2007 — Issue 131
Two works by progressive Muslims—a life of the Prophet and an analysis of Arab identity—reveal contrasting approaches to the history of Islam
Bombast as art
25th February 2007 — Issue 131
In portraying Hitler as the product of a diabolical incest, Norman Mailer has taken fictional ambition to a remote peak of implausibility
Cultural consumption
25th February 2007 — Issue 131
Erudite and packed with information, Donald Sassoon's vast social history of European culture suffers from a lack of curiosity about cultural value
Widescreen
25th February 2007 — Issue 131
Should films about Britishness get tax breaks? Yes, because anything that makes other countries better able to compete with Hollywood is a good thing
Private view
25th February 2007 — Issue 131
Real power in today's art world is held by advisers—shadowy figures who tell the rich what to buy and play auction houses and galleries off against each other
Smallscreen
25th February 2007 — Issue 131
The ongoing success of What Not to Wear, despite Trinny and Susannah's defection from the BBC, proves that viewers prefer good formats to famous faces
Between the lines
25th February 2007 — Issue 131
Women are hardly marginalised in literary culture, so why the obligatory war cry from the Orange chair? Plus, can Vintage be trusted with the classics?
Washington watch
25th February 2007 — Issue 131
The shake-up of Bush's national security team makes Cheney look isolated—but don't count him out yet. Plus the Republicans prepare for congressional war
By the rivers of Babylon
25th February 2007 — Issue 131
Our new Iraq-watcher describes how Sunni extremists chose a new "caliph." And a rash of Iraqi jailbreaks may have hastened Saddam's execution
Matters of taste
25th February 2007 — Issue 131
It wasn't until I went to China that I began to understand what Chinese food is really like. Meals in London's Chinatown will never be the same again
Out of mind
25th February 2007 — Issue 131
Alice thinks she's depressed, but her erratic behaviour may be better explained by the diagnosis nobody wants—borderline personality disorder
France profonde
25th February 2007 — Issue 131
Most French people believe their government is corrupt. This may not stop corrupt politicians gaining office, but it turns many off voting and benefits Le Pen
Lab report
25th February 2007 — Issue 131
Dark matter accounts for five sixths of the universe's mass—so why do we know so little about it? Plus, why it takes whole minutes for computers to turn on
Out of Africa
25th February 2007 — Issue 131
Too many African schools worship the idea of education but then teach nothing useful. A school in rural Uganda points the way to a brighter future
Brussels diary
25th February 2007 — Issue 131
As Margaret Beckett and Geoff Hoon battle it out over who is Britain's voice in Europe, Kim Darroch, Blair's EU policy man, will actually take the decisions