---
title: "Best of 2018: interviews and columns"
date: "2018-12-21T12:39:49+00:00"
modified: "2018-12-21T12:39:49+00:00"
url: "https://newhumanist.org.uk/2018/12/21/best-of-2018-interviews-and-columns/"
post_id: 6834
categories: ["Uncategorised"]
---

# Best of 2018: interviews and columns

 ![A portrait photograph of Rania Abouzeid](https://newhumanist.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/images/rania-abouzeid.jpg "Rania Abouzeid, interviewed in our summer 2018 issue.")Rania Abouzeid, interviewed in our summer 2018 issue.[The problem with identity politics](/articles/5342/the-problem-with-identity-politics)

Asad Haider on his book *Mistaken Identity: Race and Class in the Age of Trump*, which argues that identity politics in its modern sense is not synonymous with anti-racism, but instead amounts to the neutralisation of these movements.

[“The modern faith in democracy is sometimes perverse”](/articles/5382/the-modern-faith-in-democracy-is-sometimes-perverse)

James Miller, author of *Can Democracy Work?* on the history of democracy and its inherent tensions and contradictions.

[Who has the right to remember?](/articles/5353/who-has-the-right-to-remember)

Samira Ahmed argues that the Windrush scandal demonstrates the ethical case for libraries and archivists.

[“To understand magnetism is to understand how the universe and Earth came to be”](/articles/5347/to-understand-magnetism-is-to-understand-how-the-universe-and-earth-came-to-be)

Science writer Alanna Mitchell on the fascinating history of one of the most powerful forces in the universe: electro-magnetism.

[“Humankind is unique in its incapacity to learn from experience”](/articles/5354/humankind-is-unique-in-its-incapacity-to-learn-from-experience)

Political philosopher John Gray talks to JP O’Malley about the problem with humanism.

[The madness of the quantum universe](/articles/5306/the-madness-of-the-quantum-universe)

The fundamental building blocks of matter have a strange dual nature, writes Marcus Chown.

[“The women of the past have traditionally been caricatured”](/articles/5277/the-women-of-the-past-have-traditionally-been-caricatured)

February 2018 marked the centenary of women in the UK being given the right to vote for the first time. Author Jane Robinson discusses her book *Hearts and Minds: The Untold Story of the Great Pilgrimage and How Women Won the Vote*.

[What makes a good lecture?](/articles/5383/what-makes-a-good-lecture)

As the value of the university lecture is debated, in his regular Endgame column, Laurie Taylor recalls his own student days.

[“People cannot say they did not know what was happening”](/articles/5321/people-cannot-say-they-did-not-know-what-was-happening)

Journalist and author Rania Abouzeid on the complexity of the Syrian conflict and the inadequacy of international responses.

[“Computers aren’t capable of using common sense”](/articles/5286/computers-arent-capable-of-using-common-sense)

In our quest to do everything digitally, have we stopped demanding that technology actually works? Journalist and software developer Meredith Broussard discusses.

[*Read our top 10 long reads*](/articles/5399/best-of-2018-long-reads)

[*Read our top 10 culture pieces*](/articles/5400/best-of-2018-culture)