May 2020

May 2020 issue

From the fight for a vaccine to the economic shock of the virus, Prospect goes beyond the headlines to ask what Covid-19 means for the world. Plus: Cal Flyn on how you can learn to talk to your dog

Past issues

Essays

He was the most revered philosopher of his era. So why did GE Moore disappear from history?

Why global warming needs national solutions

The most contentious issue in the field concerns the animals’ true aptitude with language, and what it signifies. Photo: Dougie Wallace

Want to talk to your dog? Science is finding a way

Transmission electron micrograph of SARS-CoV-2 virus particles, isolated from a patient. Photo: Flickr/

The radical uncertainties of coronavirus

John Kay and Mervyn King

Macron during a visit to a filed hospital. Pool/ABACA/ABACA/PA Images

Locking down too much or too little? Why our leaders will end up damned whatever they do

Brazilian scientists in the Immunology laboratory of the Heart Institute (Incor) of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Sao Paulo, work on a vaccine. Photo: Sebastiao Moreira, EPA-EFE, Shutterstock / Prospect composite

Shot of hope: inside the race for a coronavirus vaccine

Regulars

Photo: The cover of the May edition

The Prospect editorial: The contagion effect

The cover of the April issue

Letters: May 2020

A green approach when screens turn red? Wang Ying/Xinhua News Agency/PA Images

Why ethical investment still makes sense in a crisis

Automatic advantages? Photo: Raphael Fournier/SIPA USA/PA Images

Should you automate your investments?

Hannah Berry's cartoon: A pirate's tale

The Prospect puzzle and crossword: May 2020

Children eat school meals. Photo: PA

Still poor: the three charts that explain child poverty in Britain

Mike Brewer and Tom Clark

Illustration by Nick Taylor

Brief Encounter, Rory Stewart—in a crisis act immediately and aggressively

The US Federal Reserve in Washington DC. Photo: Ron Sachs/DPA/PA Images

Are central banks now impotent?

Paul Tucker & Adair Turner

Fire and Rescue officers use an inflatable raft in Bewdley, Worcestershire. Photo: Joe Giddens/PA Wire/PA Images

Flood defences: the long war on water

Opinions

Mizal Karim Al-Sweady, the father of Hamid Al-Sweady carries a photo of his son after leaving the inquiry into his death. Sean Dempsey/PA Archive/PA Images

The British Army should not escape the watchful eye of the law

David Allen Green

Careful testing and tracing has allowed South Korea to "flatten the curve." Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Prospect composite

How South Korea flattened the curve

Photo: PA Archive

Coronavirus Bill: History tells us that governments do not often surrender new powers they have obtained

Kenneth O Morgan

We will suffer, mourn—and recover? Photo: PeakPx

Can spiritual solace be found in such tragic times?

Photo: David Killen

Lessons from Keynes in the age of coronavirus

Robert Skidelsky

Arts & Books

Are you missing out? Fans in the moshpit at a Trivium gig in Finland. Photo: AIJA LEHTONEN/REX SHUTTERSTOCK

All you need is hate: the dangerous pleasures of extremism

Keith Kahn-Harris

KCNY5N General view, Hebron, Holy Land, (i.e. West Bank) LCCN2002724987

Colum McCann's Apeirogon sheds imaginative light on a seemingly endless conflict

The best films to stream from home this April

"Before" by William Hogarth Credit: Tate

The dangerous art of seduction

Zoe Apostolides

The best television to watch in May 2020–Once Upon a Time in Iraq to Ricky Gervais's Afterlife

Unrest in Derry in 1981 Credit: PA/PA Archive/PA Images

Derry boy—growing up during the Troubles

Gregg Henry as a Trumpian Julius Caesar at the Public Theater’s production. Credit: Handout

What Shakespeare can teach us about Trump

Farah Karim-Cooper

The best theatre to stream while under lockdown

Michael Coveney

Vox Dei: James Wilson, founder of the Economist

What the Economist doesn’t tell you

The best classical music and operas streaming online

Alexandra Coghlan

BPTP6R KARL BARTOS FLORIAN SCHNEIDER RALF HUTTER & WOLFGANG FLUR KRAFTWERK POP GROUP (1974)

How Kraftwerk changed the course of modern music

London during the Blitz Credit: Wikimedia Commons

How Britain really coped with the war

3D view of an event showing characteristics expected from the decay of the Higgs boson Credit: Cern

When science seems like magic

All the major online art exhibitions in the UK

Emma Crichton-Miller

Gloves and wellies at an Ebola treatment centre in Goma, DR Congo Credit: (PA/Sally Hayden via ZUMA Wire)

How to stop a pandemic

Mel Giedroyc (of Bake Off fame) and co-presenter Andy Bush are making a patchwork quilt using fabric and squares donated by listeners and guests. Photo: Acast

The best podcasts in May 2020—the return of Alan Partridge and the Secret Life of Prisons

Charlotte Runcie

Society and Culture

Hitler in Paris in 1940. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

"I often considered whether we would not have to destroy Paris"—How Hitler fell in love with the French capital

Rishi and his tea. Photo: Twitter

"Tea ain't from Britain": what our obsession with tea tells us about who we are

Illustration: Kate Hazell

Riots in toy shops, mass hysteria and 24-hour-news: remembering the Beanie Babies craze of the 1990ss

Caroline O'Donoghue

Illustration: Kate Hazell

What the storms blew in

Illustration: Kate Hazell

Family stories help forge an identity—even when they're not entirely true

Hephzibah Anderson

Covid-19BC. Illustration: Kate Hazell

Coronavirus and the classics—what the ancient Greeks can teach us about pandemics

Charlotte Higgins

We will suffer, mourn—and recover? Photo: PeakPx

Can spiritual solace be found in such tragic times?