Ring master
High flying, visual acrobatics, visceral shocks – Russia’s greatest director used the tricks of the circus to captivate the crowds. Owen Hatherley takes a seat in Eisenstein’s big top
Culture
God almighty PLC
Marketing expert Winston Fletcher analyses a world-beating strategy
Check republics
The game of chess has its roots in rationalism. And, like the Enlightenment itself, argues Sally Feldman, it’s a force for both liberation and tyranny
Thinkers: William Blake
William Blake was a confused failure but a great humanist, says Shirley Dent
Global warning
With cartoon controversies reverberating across the world Tzvetan Todorov, one of the world’s foremost philosophers, considers the after-effects of the Danish images
A Living Lens: Photographs of Jewish Life from the Pages of the Forward
Keith Kahn-Harris on a Jewish photographic history
Making Islam Democratic: Social Movements and the Post-Islamic Turn by Asef Bayat
Sami Zubaida questions Islamic democracy
The Art of Listening by Les Back
Stuart Sim is impressed by Les Back's approach to sociology
From Anger to Apathy: The British Experience Since 1975 by Mark Garnett
Stephen Howe is bored with apathy
Diary of a Bad Year by JM Coetzee
Stan Cohen reviews JM Coetzee's latest