Issue 22
August 1997
Contents
The year 2000 bomb: is it hype?
20th August 1997 — Issue 22
The millennium computer "time bomb" could cause mayhem in everything from laptop computers to air traffic control. Robert Fenner considers the scale of the problem and whether it has been exaggerated by those who could benefit.
Buying a better climate
20th August 1997 — Issue 22
The US has a revolutionary proposal for dealing with global warming-tradeable pollution permits. It is backed by greens and economists alike. Michael Grubb wonders whether it will see the light of day
Burke on Ireland's Holy War
20th August 1997 — Issue 22
On the two hundredth anniversary of the death of Edmund Burke, Conor Cruise O'Brien assesses the legacy of his thinking on Ireland. Enlisted by both sides in the great Home Rule controversy, Burke would not be at all surprised by Ireland's continuing conflict
Eastern front
20th August 1997 — Issue 22
Enlargement of the EU to the east is economically feasible, with sufficient flexibility in the west. But it is geopolitically risky. The historic fault line in Europe is between Germany and Russia, not Germany and France. Russia must not be isolated from Europe's mainstream
Bad memories
20th August 1997 — Issue 22
From Germany after Nazism to South Africa now, countries and individuals have had to cope with difficult pasts. Timothy Garton Ash considers the labyrinth of public and private memory and the tricks that it plays. He argues that the opening of old wounds can help to close them
Mysterious Mahler
20th August 1997 — Issue 22
What do we really know about Mahler? He has been painted as the sickly, neurotic "victim," obsessed by early death. Not so. Mahler suffered many blows, but he was a musician of great energy and resilience. If his later works seem death-ridden, we should not blame his life
Martin Amis
20th August 1997 — Issue 22
He is a writer of reckless ambition and one of the few serious novelists that most people have heard of. Yet he wins no prizes and literary London is split over him. Jason Cowley visits Amis and finds him wondering how posterity will judge his work
Russian reasons
20th August 1997 — Issue 22
There is a new optimism about Russia. Douglas Hurd, who here recalls his meetings with Gorbachev and Yeltsin, says it is justified. Even the prospect of a populist president should not alarm the west
Where are they now?
20th August 1997 — Issue 22
Once our credulity was based on ignorance-now it is based on overload. More than ever before, we need independent intellectuals to sort the wheat from the chaff. But they have disappeared
Making distinctions
20th August 1997 — Issue 22
In some areas of welfare, the state should withdraw and encourage private provision. In other areas, such as health and education, this would defeat the point-which is equality of opportunity.
Watching Wales
20th August 1997 — Issue 22
Welsh devolution is a messy compromise between those who do not want it at all and those who want more. Unlike the Scots, the Welsh are not prepared for change
Pause for thought
20th August 1997 — Issue 22
Why has the human female, but not the male, been programmed to shut down reproduction rematurely? The female thereby increases the number of people bearing her genes
The lab
20th August 1997 — Issue 22
Darwinian medicine warns us not to wipe out depression-it may serve a purpose
Not completely Frank
20th August 1997 — Issue 22
Anne Frank's diaries have appeared in at least three versions since her death in 1945. That even the latest "definitive" edition may not be so definitive
Greens get real
20th August 1997 — Issue 22
Once there was cause for alarm about the environment, but no longer, claims Gregg Easterbrook; the greens can now go home. Not so.
Yellow peril repainted
20th August 1997 — Issue 22
Is China a "rogue" country aggressively seeking hegemony in Asia, or a weakened one-party state desperately trying to control rapid social change? We may not know until it is too late
The unreconstructed
20th August 1997 — Issue 22
An old Labour academic claims that lack of demand is the main cause of unemployment. Yvette Cooper, a new Labour MP, says this Keynesianism is as out of date as the monetarism which followed
Worst of both worlds
20th August 1997 — Issue 22
The Royal Opera House, which has just closed for two and a half years, is in permanent crisis. This is because its public subsidy is both too big and too small
Etzioni and his critics
20th August 1997 — Issue 22
Libertarians accuse Amitai Etzioni of authoritarianism. But the populariser of communitarianism is in fact a classic liberal
Explaining memory wars
20th August 1997 — Issue 22
The debate about "recovered memory" and sexual abuse of children has been too concerned with Freudian methodology. We should try to discover what is actually happening
Not cricket
20th August 1997 — Issue 22
When Lady Hock does not take her medication things can go on the blink
Modern manners
20th August 1997 — Issue 22
Jeremy Clarke finds his Constable table mats dripping with the blood of farm-hands
The prisoner
20th August 1997 — Issue 22
Peter Wayne is banned from a conference on marginalisation and packed off back to Lindholme
Letter from Paris
20th August 1997 — Issue 22
Anne-Elisabeth Moutet describes how Paris has fallen at the feet of a 72-year-old lady bountiful
The business
20th August 1997 — Issue 22
John Plender fears that regulatory upheaval at the top of a bull market could spell Howard's End