As smartphone functionality has increased, so has the time we spend on them

The Athenian electorate voted to kill all the men in Mytilene. Then they had a second vote and changed their minds

Computers can now easily beat grandmasters. But as the World Chess Championship approaches, fans still want to see flawed humans battling out. David Edmonds investigates why

It's a problem philosophers have grappled with for centuries. What makes life go better or worse is varied, personal, and indefinable

Nowadays, 5th November is about eating marshmallows and hot chestnuts. And yet a certain anti-Catholic prejudice lingers in Britain

What people get spectacularly wrong is often revealing

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and Simon Heffer go head-to-head in this month's duel

The life of one paratrooper shows how we learned to see soldiers as ordinary people suffering in the service of their country, finds Lara Feigel

The author and writer of The Unpunished Vice: A Life of Reading responds to Prospect's Brief Encounter questions

Extracts from memoirs and diaries