Issue 3
December 1995
Contents
EMU: a future that works?
20th December 1995 — Issue 3
In December Europe's national leaders meet in Madrid to prepare for the 1996 inter-governmental conference. Monetary union will be high on their agenda. As differences widen over the likelihood, timing and desirability of a single currency, Charles Goodhart provides a progress report
Same as the old boss
20th December 1995 — Issue 3
The success of the new South Africa depends on what happens in its factories and offices, which in turn depends on organised labour. David Honigmann considers whether the unions, central to bringing down apartheid, can now contain black aspirations
Fukuyama: the end of history man
20th December 1995 — Issue 3
John Gray talks to the best-selling author about mobility, democracy and the breakdown of communities
Global swarming
20th December 1995 — Issue 3
If six billion people enjoyed US standards of living would it spell environmental disaster for the planet? As the economies of China and India take off, this is no longer an academic question. Vincent Cable argues that-with one big reservation-the eradication of poverty around the world is environmentally sustainable
After the Fallout
20th December 1995 — Issue 3
Chernobyl is the Dante's Inferno of modern Europe. But for thousands in the Ukraine it is a continuing source of livelihood. To shut down the nuclear power station would mean economic ruin-but what is the price of keeping it open? David Lascelles reports from the exclusion zone
The poverty of economics
20th December 1995 — Issue 3
Economic theory has neither the exactness of science nor the insights of literature. Yet it remains the dominant form of organised knowledge in the modern world. James Buchan regrets the influence and arrogance of the discipline and reveals that Adam Smith himself was a plagiarist
From here to modernity
20th December 1995 — Issue 3
The two dominant cultural movements of our century-modernism and post-modernism-were marked by the turmoil of two world wars and a cold war. But they remain almost impossible to define, even with hindsight. As "fin de millennium" anxieties start to close in on the artistic consciousness, Malcolm Bradbury asks what comes after post-modernism?
L'exception française
20th December 1995 — Issue 3
More than any other European nation, the French have a powerful sense of historical destiny. Having exported their values to the world in 1789, their self-confidence ebbed away in the 20th century. But with the election of Jacques Chirac, a new Gaullist assertiveness is making itself heard. Douglas Johnson asks whether it can co-exist with an integrating Europe
Run rabbit run
20th December 1995 — Issue 3
Banned under communism, Playboy magazine became a legend among Russians. Artyom Troitsky, rock critic turned editor-in-chief, tells how the new Russian Playboy is shaping up
In the name of the family
20th December 1995 — Issue 3
The breakdown of the family is the political issue of the moment. But the storm over the domestic violence and divorce bills demonstrates that political fashion makes for bad legislation. Mary Tuck explains why
Striking lucky Jim
20th December 1995 — Issue 3
Literary agents read hundreds of novels by little-known authors-few become classics. Hilary Rubinstein describes hitting the jackpot with Kingsley Amis's Lucky Jim
A European writes
20th December 1995 — Issue 3
Without a single currency Europe's single market could fall apart, warns Leon Brittan. Emu, he says, is vital-the UK, of course, should continue to watch and wait
A long day's journey
20th December 1995 — Issue 3
Yael Tamir was two hundred yards away from Yitzhak Rabin when he was shot. A veteran of the Israeli Peace Now movement, she describes an event charged with irony and emotion
Gellner on nationalism
20th December 1995 — Issue 3
Ernest Gellner made important contributions to intellectual life in anthropology, sociology, and philosophy. He used them all to further the study of nationalism. In his last public appearance in the UK, at Warwick University, he debated the theme "Nationalism, real or imaginary?" with Anthony Smith (who spoke first). Following is an edited extract
European film mountain
20th December 1995 — Issue 3
Europe has produced many of the world's greatest movie talents, so why are most European co-productions flops? Christopher Tookey investigates
Borderline philosophy
20th December 1995 — Issue 3
Should philosophers write novels? Vernon Bogdanor reads Steven Lukes's attempt to follow in the footsteps of Candide-and of Sophie's World
Gilding Victoria
20th December 1995 — Issue 3
Victorian values are no longer so confidently promoted by conservatives in the UK, but their US counterparts are picking up the banner. David Cannadine discovers Republican nostalgia for the 1950s rather than the 19th century
In pursuit of the unspeakable
20th December 1995 — Issue 3
Constitutional reform is usually regarded as worthy but dull. Anthony Barnett of Charter 88 argues that this indifference has been challenged. Reform has found a voice. The simultaneous publication of several important books on constitutional themes seems to support his case
Digest
20th December 1995 — Issue 3
The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin has produced varying responses in the Arab world-from the public grief of King Hussein to the much more circumspect analyses excerpted here
Ernest Gellner: 1925-1995
20th December 1995 — Issue 3
Ernest Gellner died on November 5th in Prague, the city where he lived as a child and to which he returned in 1992 to establish the Centre for the Study of Nationalism. In September this year the Centre accepted its first group of doctoral students. Below, they remember their teacher