Imagined communities
Usually associated with the political right, nationalism is dynamic and versatile enough to take liberal and left-wing forms too.
Ideas
“The problem with the marketplace of ideas is that it is more like an oligarchy of ideas”
Q&A with journalist and author Nesrine Malik.
“Ignorance really is blissful, especially for the powerful”
Q&A with Linsey McGoey, author of "The Unknowers: How Strategic Ignorance Rules the World".
In a word: violence
Michael Rosen's column on language and its uses.
Book review: The Class Ceiling
The evidence gathered in a new book makes it harder for cheerleaders of meritocracy to deny the existence of class bias in public life.
Willing servants
The social industry was invented to capture social life and turn it to profit – and we are all slaving away as its unpaid “digital serfs”.
“If I had my way, we would drop the word ‘Renaissance’ from our historical lexicon”
Q&A with Felipe Fernández-Armesto, author of "Out of Our Minds: What We Think and How We Came to Think It".
Book review: Witcraft
Jonathan Rée's new book is a fascinating history of how philosophy entered and developed within the English language.
“Privatising the causes of stress dovetails nicely with neoliberal ideology”
Q&A with Ronald Purser, author of "McMindfulness: How Mindfulness Became the New Capitalist Spirituality".
Feminism’s history wars
Millicent Fawcett is now honoured in Westminster, but what about the women who saw their fight as part of a wider struggle?