Issue 48
January 2000
Contents
Special report: the universe is savage
20th January 2000 — Issue 48
Every year there are at least 500 gamma-ray bursts in the universe. They destroy everything within a few hundred light years of the source. What do these extraordinary explosions mean for intelligent life in the cosmos?
Tricks of memory
20th January 2000 — Issue 48
The 20th century has witnessed the conquering of infectious disease, soaring life expectancy and a miracle of economic growth. Yet it is often described as the most terrible century in human history-and we can't even remember its horrors without descending into a kind of false memory syndrome
A sour taste
20th January 2000 — Issue 48
On gooseberries, Chekhov, still life painting and a bullying father
British champion
20th January 2000 — Issue 48
Norman Davies has written an important history of the British Isles. But his analysis of the present situation is ill-considered. The fashionable view that Britain will wither away is wrong. The English, Welsh and Scots still share common interests and a British identity, for which Europe is no substitute
Mind the gap
20th January 2000 — Issue 48
New Labour does not have a convincing story to tell about the left's most important value-equality. In practice its "third way" approach means trying to improve conditions for the worst off but otherwise accepting market outcomes. Does Tony Blair's idea of community require something more ambitious?
Good traitors
20th January 2000 — Issue 48
Republican "revisionists" have played a vital role in preparing the intellectual ground for the Northern Ireland peace process. These traitors to the nationalist cause include a new generation of Irish writers and former IRA volunteers who have reached out to David Trimble's new unionism
A millennium resolution
20th January 2000 — Issue 48
Is our ancient susceptibility to falling in love fading? Will love in the new millennium be more rational?
Publish or perish
20th January 2000 — Issue 48
Most academics say the Research Assessment Exercise is a disaster. After nearly 15 years, is it time to change it?
Right of reply
20th January 2000 — Issue 48
Western coverage of Russia's latest invasion of Chechnya has been hopelessly one-sided
The lab
20th January 2000 — Issue 48
Forget Newton, Darwin and Einstein. The greatest scientist of the millennium was Alfred Kinsey
Musical notes
20th January 2000 — Issue 48
How do you write up-lifting, start-of-an-era music? With difficulty it seems, as Kurt Masur has discovered
The story of us
20th January 2000 — Issue 48
We are now subject to a steady flow of news about decoding the human genome and its 100,000 genes. Kevin Davies recommends Matt Ridley as a guide through the maze
A better class of critic
20th January 2000 — Issue 48
Critics have been getting it in the neck again from playwrights. But they are not the uncreative dolts of caricature, argues critic and writer David Nathan
Those who favour Frost
20th January 2000 — Issue 48
Jeffrey Hart on a satisfying new biography of the American poet Robert Frost, who deserves to be up with Yeats and Eliot in the poetry pantheon
The dying language of art
20th January 2000 — Issue 48
The painter Susannah Fiennes continues an occasional column in which she tells us what is happening in great paintings. This month, "Perseus and Andromeda" by Titian
Men behaving badly
20th January 2000 — Issue 48
Samuel Brittan on an imperfect book which nevertheless should be read by as many people as possible
The star
20th January 2000 — Issue 48
A Jesuit priest discovers the awful truth about that familiar star
Previous convictions
20th January 2000 — Issue 48
I did not realise just how attached I was to our old family home until I saw what the Wilkinsons had done to it
Brussels diary
20th January 2000 — Issue 48
The commission is still trying to decide whether there is a European alternative to Anglo-Saxon capitalism