Volume 119 Issue 1 January/February 2004
Cover Story
- Imperial Catastrophe
- Michael Mann, the leading historian of power, forecast the failure of the American adventure in Iraq. So what should happen next?
Columns
- Reader's digest
- Laurie Taylor has an appetite for the incomprehensible
- Editorial: L'Etat, c'est quoi?
- Jacques Chirac certainly picks his fights
- Bones of contention
- Robert Foley on why science still needs anthropological remains
- What the butler saw
- Tom Baldwin sees some queer goings on behind closed doors
Features
- Ziggy Stardust
- Orlando Radice learns about love from the grand old man of sociology
- Stripping Assets
- As speculation mounts about who will be the new owner of Britain's best-selling conservative broadsheet, the Daily Telegraph, so does disgust at the prospect of a 'pornographer' as proprietor. But how much do his detractors actually know about his business? Sally Feldman delves between the covers
- The Bridge to Freedom?
- Sam Washington and Phil Kemp spent months trying to find out more about the mysterious Church of Scientology. Their research won them a BBC File on 4 Investigative Journalism award. Here they reveal their troubling findings
- Hammer and Crescent
- A potential electoral force is emerging from the antiwar movement. But why is a supposedly progressive grouping making room for religious conservatives, asks Amanda Day?
- Kill me quick
- Many of us would choose to take our own life rather than linger on till the bitter end. But whats the best way of going about it? Pádraig Reidy seeks a final exit
- Back to the USSR?
- In the wake of Russia's recent, widely criticised elections, Michael Binyon asks whether Putin is taking his country back to a Soviet past
- 'That's for the fellahs!': Laurie Taylor interviews Beryl Bainbridge
- Beryl Bainbridge, who died on 2 July, talked to Laurie Taylor in 2004, about death, religion and the novelist's search for higher meaning
- Bad News for Free Will
- The Libet Experiments showed we have no control over our actions. Or did they? Alfred Mele still managed to write a critique of them
- Gurus and gibberish
- Francis Wheen on the snake-oils and quacks of our age
Culture
- Graceful cynicism
- Peter Kerr-Jarrett on the poetry of Catullus
- In a country forecourt
- Paul Barker on the new architectural landmarks: petrol stations
- God's goof - the universe
- John Maddox reviews a godless collection
- Critical humanism
- Book Review: AC Grayling on Hope and Memory by Tzvetan Todorov
- Rationalism for all?
- Julian Baggini on a new book of rationalism
- A dark heritage of fiction
- by Sally Feldman
- Jailhouse Reels
- The release of Carandiru prompts Andrew Tudor to reflect on the prison movie genre
- Dad-lit in Decline
- by Chris Paling
- Angels in America
- The latest batch of US television shows heading our way has a distinctly mystic tone, warns Rob Greene
