For 50 years, the cold war provided the US with a moral purpose. Now American conservatives are looking for a new enemy. Owen Harries argues that they are wrong to pick on China. Although...

Peter Wayne meets Michael Howard's wife and proves to be a gentleman and spin doctor

Geography, not biology ultimately accounts for the ascendancy of Europe in the modern world. Its fragmented terrain prevented political unity and provided the competition which gave it the lead over...

Scientists want cash for answers. They shouldn't get it

Green matters Dear Derek, When you left the department of the environment last year you said you intended to shed some of your official reserve. I would like to take you up on that because a lot of...

 

Jean Baudrillard, the high priest of post-modernism, meets Marina Benjamin at the Ritz, and tells her that news has destroyed reality and that history is running backwards

Half of Africa is heading for hell, while in the rest life is improving surprisingly fast. Under Laurent Kabila, the new Democratic Republic of Congo could become the continent's dynamic heart

Tony Blair has chosen to speak out on the moral crisis of the welfare state but he may have raised expectations that he cannot fulfil. Roderick Nye considers the trouble ahead

European integration is not a cover for German hegemonic ambitions. It is the only alternative to the destructive power politics of the past