Under the current two-party political system, America is essentially ungovernable

Former civil servants give their view on the case for reform

The Conservatives were not always so unpopular in the north of England—can they win it...

The Royal Academy’s new exhibition shows how little Brits know about Australian art

How could Europe’s leaders have “allowed the First World War to happen, then...

The competence and purpose of the civil service is under scrutiny

What’s wrong with the civil service? Too many mistakes and too cut off from the country

Alan Greenspan appears to have learnt nothing from his time at the top of the Fed

The UK must do more to prevent civil war

War veterans' stories threaten official history

Afghanistan is a contest of stamina between the US Congress and the Taliban

Prospect’s counter-factual column

As the west recovers and emerging economies start to struggle, the pattern of growth is...

AC Grayling Vs Emily Thornberry

It’s a bleak portrait that George Packer presents of the United States (p20), crippled...

This month's cultural must-sees

Extracts from memoirs and diaries

Nobody should have an unfair advantage

Prospect readers have their say

Prospect’s counter-factual column

The winner of this year's Nobel Prize for Physics waited 48 years for the confirmation of...

A new biography of François Mitterrand shows how a man from a right-wing bourgeois...

What Bath was to Austen, or Paris to Balzac, Willesden is to Zadie Smith

When Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837, Britain was on the brink of unrest. Forty...

Perry Anderson takes aim at the abiding cliché of contemporary commentary on India

Latin might be classified as a long-dead language—but this work reminds us that no one...

A new book about Philip Roth shows that his achievement has been to wring so many great...

Alexander McCall Smith on the profound ways Auden has influenced his life

Walter White has been damned by his pact with the devil; but the morality debate tells us...

“Shut that sodding racket off”

Bang!

A poor deal

How to tell if wine is corked

Ready to kill