Issue 83
February 2003
Contents
Galileo Galilei
20th February 2003 — Issue 83
The great 17th-century Italian scientist returned to earth briefly last month for an exclusive interview with Lewis Wolpert. He clears up some confusions about his legacy planted by Bertolt Brecht
Is the clean car coming?
20th February 2003 — Issue 83
Despite recent setbacks, the battle to break the monopoly of the internal combustion engine is still on. Battery driven cars are out of favour but fuel cell cars and hybrids - combining normal engines with batteries - will be widely used in ten years
Daniel Libeskind
20th February 2003 — Issue 83
A Jewish Museum in Berlin, a war museum in Manchester, even a Rwanda massacre memorial - is Libeskind being typecast? If so, it may help him to the biggest prize in contemporary architecture
Methadone madness
20th February 2003 — Issue 83
I'm out of Wandsworth, keen to go straight after 20 years of criminal life, with a methadone prescription to keep me off heroin. The only problem is cutting through the red tape while cold turkey sets in
Death by naturalism
20th February 2003 — Issue 83
How close can fiction come to describing reality? The British author BS Johnson embarked on a quest for absolute literary naturalism which ended in his suicide.
Empire lite
20th February 2003 — Issue 83
The case for empire is that it has become, in a place like Iraq, the last hope for democracy and stability. America is an imperial power for a post-imperial age - but like the empires of old it faces over-extension and defeat if it does not share the burden. Even the powerful need friends and allies
Is regime change in Iraq necessary?
20th February 2003 — Issue 83
PHILIP BOBBITT VS ROBERT SKIDELSKY
Migration limits
20th February 2003 — Issue 83
Large-scale immigration into Britain and some other European countries is a recent phenomenon and, despite the benefits it brings, cannot continue at current rates without disturbing existing national cultures and identities. A prominent left-wing economist argues that numbers do matter
Bard by the Beeb
20th February 2003 — Issue 83
Just two Shakespeare plays in five years on BBC television. That makes 100 hours of EastEnders for every hour of Shakespeare
Free trade fallacy II
20th February 2003 — Issue 83
Last month, Michael Lind argued that free-trade globalism locks in rich-world advantage and kicks away the ladder. He is wrong
Not too much verité please
20th February 2003 — Issue 83
Documentaries are playing to big audiences in French cinema; but they pale next to films by Michael Moore or Ken Loach. France cannot bear much reality.
The end of men?
20th February 2003 — Issue 83
The Y chromosome is, in effect, cloned from father to son; and it is gradually decaying. In ten million years, human males may have ceased to exist.
Less is more
20th February 2003 — Issue 83
To make a splash with a novel, write a big one-that's what publishers think. But what about concision and refinement? What about "The Great Gatsby"?
Klein's clangers
20th February 2003 — Issue 83
Anti-globalisation celebrity Naomi Klein is all that is left of revolutionary socialism when it loses its intellectual and organisational discipline.