Russia is entering its most unstable period since the end of the Soviet Union. Will there be violence? Who is running the country? Why is the economy still depressed? Six Russia watchers review the...

George Steiner is probably the most eminent literary critic writing in English. James Wood, a young pretender to his throne, launches a blistering attack on the critic's work

There is not much space on the pavements of Bath in the summer months. The reason for the crush is that the city is blooming with language schools for the well-heeled youth of continental Europe....

Since our web site went live, there has been a marked increase in the amount of junk e-mail we have been receiving. Tut tut! The barbarians are everywhere. The sending of unsolicited e-mail is a...

Screen biographies, from Schindler's List to Gandhi, have swept the board at the Oscars. But, Christopher Tookey argues, four recent releases testify to the wretched state of the genre

Kathleen Norris on how people who give up sex can exudea sense of freedom and teach something about friendship

Berthold Goldschmidt is belatedly recognised as one of Britain's finest modern composers. In the last interview before his death he told Edward Pearce about neglect and rediscovery

Matthew Bigg, Reuters correspondent, finds himself the victim of ethnic rage in eastern Zaire

Octogenarian economist John Kenneth Galbraith no longer fulminates against consumerism. But, says Kenneth Minogue, his view of the good society is still irredeemably statist

Gertrude Himmelfarb is grateful for computers and CD-Roms, but fears the impact of the cyberspace revolution on the life of the mind. This is an edited extract