Society & Culture

Will 2021 be the year of the great reset?

While the 2008 financial crisis delivered similar lessons on the importance of wellbeing, life quickly returned to type soon after. Today, there are positive and active signs that we are reaching a new normal

Joanna George  

January 2, 2021

The main lesson from 2020? Man plans—and God laughs

This should be peak planning season. But the last 12 months has revealed that we're not really in control of our lives

Hephzibah Anderson  

December 31, 2020

Adobe Flash is finally gone—and with it, the weird spontaneity of the early 2000s Internet

It was past its prime, but Adobe Flash will always be remembered as the progenitor of much weirdness in early online culture

David McAllister  

December 30, 2020

The pandemic exposed Britain’s loneliness generational divide—but it’s not the one you think it is

Loneliness is less determined by what happens to you, and more by whether you have the close relationships that you want and need—and it's the young who are suffering

Jason Murugesu  

December 28, 2020

How longer life expectancy has changed our view of ageing

Longer living can open up more possibilities for all of us

Stefan Stern  

December 26, 2020

Board games are a health risk this Christmas. But then when have they not been?

Learning how to win and lose is not easy but may be necessary

Miranda France  

December 25, 2020

Ten of the Prospect stories you read most in 2020

From our annual Top Thinkers poll to Brexit and—of course—coronavirus

Chris Tilbury  

December 23, 2020

UK exams policy is now hopelessly fragmented. Young people will suffer

A fair university admissions process has been sacrificed as different parts of the UK pull in contradictory directions

Alice Wright  

December 22, 2020

The next battle in the culture wars? Traffic bollards

Opponents of low-traffic neighbourhoods spy a liberal plot. The reality is far more prosaic

Pearl Ahrens and Christian Wolmar  

December 21, 2020

John le Carré and the art of betrayal

The novelist was fascinated by the traitor’s bargains and self-deceptions

Sameer Rahim  

December 16, 2020

EU law in the UK, 1973-2020: an obituary

We are stronger for having known you

David Allen Green  

December 8, 2020

The climate apocalypse hangs over us—so how should we write about it?

A quotation commonly attributed to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry says “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people together to collect wood... but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea." Nature writers should…

Cal Flyn  

December 7, 2020

The great diversity and inclusion experiment

Corporate diversity programmes are rising—and have become a flashpoint in the culture wars. But are they working?

Rebecca Liu  

December 4, 2020

How did Virginia Woolf enjoy her pudding?

Odes to cakes and sweets throughout history

Ian Irvine  

November 11, 2020

A love letter to the conservatory, a hangover from our suburban dreams

Families spent the 1990s attaching these big glass rooms to their homes, only to quickly discover they were useless for most of the year. What a fitting parable for the weirdness of suburban life

Caroline O'Donoghue  

November 10, 2020

Will the pandemic spell the end of the office?

Shared working spaces were losing popularity even before the pandemic forced us into working from home. Will we miss them more than we think?

Hephzibah Anderson  

November 10, 2020

Is Pandora's box really the origin of all evil? Think again

We have the story of Pandora from two 7th-century BC poems by Hesiod. But some things have been lost in translation

Charlotte Higgins  

November 9, 2020

Kids' books show that families come in all varieties—it's time adults took notice

Reading to my daughter in the just-the-two-of-us home, I'm beginning to appreciate a different sort of literary canon

Hephzibah Anderson  

November 8, 2020

Late night takeaways keep our cities alive. After lockdown, we should help them survive

Whether it’s Middlesbrough’s chicken parmos, Cardiff’s cheesy chips or Glasgow’s munchy boxes, the late-night snack is the purest expression of a city’s culture

Jonathan Nunn  

November 7, 2020

Has 2020 vindicated the doomsday prepper?

Zadie Smith considers herself to have no survival instinct. I stock survival guidebooks on my bookshelf. But are we really that different?

Cal Flyn  

November 6, 2020