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• Quite contrary: inside the Battle of Ideas

  The associates of the Institute of Ideas certainly have a talent for getting noticed. But is there more to them than hollow liberal-baiting? asks Richard Wilson

• Hot type

  Andrew Mueller revels in the vituperative opinions of HL Mencken

• Book review: Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life by Karen Armstrong

  Ophelia Benson finds Karen Armstrong's spiritual manifesto lacking in spirit and laughs

• Inside the mind of Scientology's Messiah

  Twenty-five years after his death, Michael Bywater revisits the sacred texts of the pulp science writer turned prophet L Ron Hubbard

• Book review: Capital Affairs by Frank Mort

  Louise Foxcroft exposes the dirty secrets of '50s London

• Book review: The Honour Code by Kwame Anthony Appiah

  Stephen Howe decodes Anthony Appiah

• What's the big deal?

  From poker to Shithead, Canasta to cribbage, Sally Feldman extols the joys and rewards of card games

• People get ready

  A new exhibition of James Barnor’s photography provides a route-map of Afro-Modernism. Kobena Mercer gets it in focus

• Science, God's Philosophers and the Dark Ages

  The claims made by James Hannam regarding the birth of modern science in the Middle Ages do not stand up to scrutiny, says Charles Freeman

• Book review: The Management Myth – Why the Experts Keep Getting it Wrong

  Andrew Mueller enters the world of consultancy