August / September 2021

August / September 2021 issue

The World's Top Thinkers for 2021, Andrew Adonis profiles Boris Johnson, English identity and racism, why "What is a woman?" is a more difficult question to answer than you might think. Plus the legacy of 9/11, the perils of quantitative easing, shoul...

Past issues

© Hayley Warnham

Politics

The world’s top 50 thinkers 2021

We stopped, they rethought. Meet the outstanding minds who are shaping the future

© Kathryn Rose Brown

Politics

The England delusion

Regularly falling to foreign takeovers and perennially divided, England is a nation that never was. No wonder we’re fracturing

Essays

Boris Johnson: The Prime Etonian

He plays the clown but has turned himself into one of Britain’s most dominant prime ministers. How has he done it? Andrew Adonis explains how Johnson’s school nurtured a literal class act

Take your medicine: prescriptions for antidepressants have seen a threefold increase in the past 20 years. Photo: © Arno Massee / Alamy Stock Photo

Culture

Pills, bills and heartache: how Big Pharma helped create our mental health crisis

A polemic on the evils of the pharmaceutical industry needs to apply more rigour to its own argument

Up Front

Photo: PA Images / Alamy Stock Photo

What you need to know about GB News

Illustration by Ian Morris

How to fix elderly care

The Prospect editorial—300 not out

Letters: August/September 2021

A bust at Musei Capitolini, Rome. Lanmas / Alamy Stock Photo

Emperor Nero—tyrant, or misunderstood?

Charlotte Higgins

Stephen Collins’s cartoon: A new Olympic event

Stephen Collins

Illustration by Ian Morris

Why the law of trespass needs to develop for the modern age

David Allen Green

Contested: Keiko Fujimori on the campaign trail. Photo: REUTERS/Sebastian Castaneda

Peru's unhappy birthday

Valeria Costa-Kostritsky

Valentyn Volkov / Alamy Stock Photo

The duel: should we ban meat?

Cal Flyn & Peter Singer

In data: England's divides

Lawrence McKay & John Denham

Essays

© Hayley Warnham

The world’s top 50 thinkers 2021

Boris Johnson: The Prime Etonian

© Kathryn Rose Brown

The England delusion

In the cultural fabric: members of India’s hijra community are officially recognised as the country’s “third sex.” © Matt Hahnewald Photography / Alamy Stock Photo

What is a woman?

Photo: © IWM / Film © Smoking Dogs Films. Installation view of Mimesis: African Soldier by John Akomfrah, co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW, New Art Exchange, Nottingham and Smoking Dogs Films, with additional support from Sharjah Art Foundation

Will the Imperial War Museum survive the culture wars?

Marcus Rashford's mural was defaced—but Mancunians soon covered up the damage. PA Images / Alamy Stock Photo

Britain’s racism problem—we’ve made progress, but not enough

© Chronicle / Alamy Stock Photo

Quantitative easing: how the world got hooked on magicked-up money

© Guy Smallman/Getty Images

“In my dreams I’m still doing the deliveries": Inside the battle against the gig economy

Jem Bartholomew

The legacy of 9/11

Stephen Wertheim

Photo by JEKESAI NJIKIZANA/AFP via Getty Images

Tsitsi Dangarembga’s trials of freedom

Catherine Taylor

Critical Thinkng

Photo: Arterra Picture Library / Alamy Stock Photo

We've got the Neanderthals all wrong—and are now closer to them than ever

Photo: © IWM / Film © Smoking Dogs Films. Installation view of Mimesis: African Soldier by John Akomfrah, co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW, New Art Exchange, Nottingham and Smoking Dogs Films, with additional support from Sharjah Art Foundation

Will the Imperial War Museum survive the culture wars?

The philosophy of porn

Illustration by Kate Hazell

What it’s like to be an ant

Arts & Books

Take your medicine: prescriptions for antidepressants have seen a threefold increase in the past 20 years. Photo: © Arno Massee / Alamy Stock Photo

Pills, bills and heartache: how Big Pharma helped create our mental health crisis

Photo by JEKESAI NJIKIZANA/AFP via Getty Images

Tsitsi Dangarembga’s trials of freedom

Catherine Taylor

Duly noted: Mark Carney holds a new £5 note with Winston Churchill © REUTERS, Stefan Wermuth/Alamy Stock Photo

Where did capitalism go wrong?

Encountering the world: Amartya Sen at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1958 © Photo courtesy of Amartya Sen

Amartya Sen: the optimistic Indian

Ferdinand Mount

Crisscrossing the world: DH Lawrence with his wife Frieda in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Photo: University of Nottingham Manuscripts and Special Collections, La Phot 1/8

DH Lawrence’s secret places of life

The Startup wife follows a woman in tech. Credit: Dmytro Sidelnikov / Alamy Stock Photo

A satire on the tech world is full of bold humour

Universal solutions: Gordon Brown in 2014 Credit: Steven Scott Taylor

Gordon Brown’s serious solutions are out of tune with the age

Arifa Akbar (right) with her sister Fauzia in Lahore, Pakistan. Credit: Sceptre

A heartbreaking testament to familial love—and its opposite

Alex Peake-Tomkinson

Waiting to be desired: women in a Nw York bar. Credit: Frances Roberts /Alamy

Lisa Taddeo’s ferocious first novel lacks humanity

Thomas Søndergård & RSNO, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall. Photo: © SALLY JUBB/

The best classical and opera in the UK this summer

Alexandra Coghlan

Alan Warner’s novel, The Sopranos, is brought to vivid, booze-sodden life by director Michael Caton-Jones. Photo: Sony Pictures

The best films in the UK this summer

Actor Conor Ratliff was once fired for having "dead eyes"—now his podcast explores other people's crushing failures in showbusiness. © Mindy Tucker

The best new podcasts this summer

Charlotte Runcie

The best television in the UK this summer

Illustration by Nick Taylor

Ali Smith: “My role model? Buffy the Vampire Slayer”

Policy & Money

World leaders at the G7 summit in June. American Photo Archive / Alamy Stock Photo

Will the global minimum corporate tax really be as transformative as it sounds?

Investors: see the big picture, index the details

Policy report: climate change is bringing our ageing travel links into focus

Over 23,000 public electric vehicle charging devices have been installed in the UK. Photo: Federico Julien / Alamy Stock Photo

We need to plant, connect, go green—and grow our transport infrastructure

The Thames Tideway “super sewer” is already in the works. © PA Images / Alamy Stock Photo

National infrastructure chief: it’s time to build better back-up

And Finally

Prospect puzzle and crossword—August/September 2021

To quote Downing Street’s Larry the cat, tweeting from his unofficial account in early summer, “British weather: Too cold and wet, too cold and wet, too cold and wet, too cold and wet, too cold and wet, too cold and wet. Sun… Too hot. Illustration: Hannah

The mystery of Britain's love-hate relationship with the sun

Hephzibah Anderson

Illustration by Nick Taylor

Ali Smith: “My role model? Buffy the Vampire Slayer”