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The Summer 2015 issue of New Humanist is on sale now! You can find it in branches of WH Smith at mainline train stations, airports and selected high street stores.

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Highlights include:

Cover story - Is there life beyond work? Sociologist Emma Dowling discusses the work of the Italian philosopher Franco "Bifo" Berardi and the way in which our sense of identity is intimately linked to our jobs:

“We can often find outselves anticipating what might be expected of us beyond what is ever actually demanded of us. Yet this is by no means an accidental by-product of what we do, but the result of the ways in which many jobs today simultaneously allow and require us to use our intellectual, emotional, creative and mental capacities such as that we give our whole “self” – the very person we “are”, including our hopes and dreams – to the work we do.”

Martin Bright, political journalist and one-time employee of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, reviews Blair, Inc: The Man Behind the Mask, a new book about the former Prime Minister's business interests

"At no point was I left in any doubt about Blair’s faith. He was clearly driven by a conviction that if only people were “good” Christians, Muslims, Jews etc, then the world would be a better place. On the issue of how Blair reconciles his apparently conflicting activities, I agree with the authors that this stems from the belief that he is “a pretty straight guy” and that this is turn has its origins in his Christian faith."

Kenan Malik takes issue with John Gray's new book on free will

“Rather than trying to impose sense on your life… be content to let meaning come and go,” Gray advises. A retired philosophy professor living in Britain might be able to live off such gnomic pronouncements. But it is not a “freedom” likely to provide much solace to people in Syria or Libya, or Ferguson or Baltimore."

PLUS

  • Angela Saini on Narendra Modi’s soft war on secularism
  • Erwin James, who served a life sentence for murder, talks to Maria Cantacuzino, whose Forgiveness Project brings together victims and perpetrators of crime
  • In an unstable world, what is the future of humanitarian intervention? David Wearing assesses the evidence
  • Samira Shackle investigates the closure of the Durham Free School and the role of faith in education
  • David Whitehouse takes us on a journey to the centre of the Earth
  • Myra Zepf on what happens when your kids start asking you about the meaning of life
  • Ken Worpole explores the way in which architects are rethinking how humans relate to the environment
  • Brian Whitaker speaks to the citizens of Arab countries who are rejecting religion
  • Fatema Ahmed on Amit Chaudhuri's quietly subversive fiction
  • Essays on Game of Thrones and Pier Paolo Pasolini; new poetry; columns by Laurie Taylor, Marcus Chown and Michael Rosen; cartoons by Grizelda, Martin Rowson and Royston Robertson, cryptic crossword and Chris Maslanka's quiz

Get six months of New Humanist for just £1! UK customers, direct debit only. After six months your subscription will continue at the annual rate of £27. You can cancel at any time. Overseas readers can subscribe for £27 a year or take out a digital-only subscription for £10.