FROM THE MAGAZINE

April 2021

China

Is the Pope a Chinese asset?

The Pontiff has kowtowed to Beijing

By Damian Thompson

From the Magazine

Finance

Show us the money

Why society needs cash

By Ross Clark

From the Magazine

Business

The city that never dies

It’s too soon to write off New York

By Ed Zotti

From the Magazine

Internet

Thirst trap: how ‘vinfluencers’ took over the wine world

I work in wine, but my lip curls involuntarily at pouting influencers

By Lisse Garnett

From the Magazine

Business

Journalism is pure madness

The North American media is in a ‘purity spiral’

By Toby Young

From the Magazine

Middle East

The virus and Isis

What do jihadis think about the COVID-19 pandemic?

By Paul Wood

From the Magazine

Science & Tech

Shame won’t make you quit smoking. Love might

If you’re lucky, you stumble upon people who’d like you around for a long time

By Chadwick Moore

From the Magazine

After a week or two in New Hampshire, I worry that I’m regressing as an adult

I’m duly chastened when my brother suggests I stop sharing memes and let him get this grant written

By Bria Sandford

From the Magazine

Middle East

The dark Prince

A short history of a very modern mercenary

By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos

From the Magazine

Science & Tech

More drugs!

Just what America needs

By Mary Eberstadt

From the Magazine

Internet

Please cancel me

It would be good for business

By Matt Purple

From the Magazine

Science & Tech

Big Dope

A fog of madness, a stinky green cloud, is now descending on America

By Madeleine Kearns

From the Magazine

International

How to overcome the new fear of flying

With few exceptions, almost every single person tried to talk us out of going

By Bridget Phetasy

From the Magazine

China

How China targets Uighur expats in the US

Some prominent activists say they’ve been tracked down several times

By Hollie McKay

From the Magazine

Europe

That’s Zemmour: meet France’s Tucker Carlson

Could the controversial journalist unseat Emmanuel Macron?

By Jonathan Miller

From the Magazine

Science & Tech

The Great Acceleration: why I’m looking forward to the post-COVID age

What is starting today is a new age of technological wonder

By Bruno Maçães

From the Magazine

Middle East

Is the truth about burn pits too toxic?

My brother, his cancer and the political disregard for veterans

By Mary Kate Skehan

From the Magazine

Spectator Editorial

How the border crisis could define Biden’s presidency

The new administration is dangerously addicted to sentimentality

By Spectator Editorial

From the Magazine

Politics

Justice for Derek Chauvin

If you were a juror, would you dare to return a ‘not guilty’ verdict?

By Roger Kimball

From the Magazine

Books + Arts

Music

Dark knight of cool

Poor Chet Baker. He really was born to be blue

By Jacob Heilbrunn

From the Magazine

Music

What did Steve get?

The Buzzcocks guitarist on a weird 2020

By Graeme Thomson

From the Magazine

Art

Pictures at an exhibition

As he collects nearly two decades of essays and criticism, Marco Grassi recalls a life in the art world

By Marco Grassi

From the Magazine

Film

Sundance memories

Robert Redford’s film festival goes virtual

By Gavin Smith

From the Magazine

Books

Ever the Twain

For an artist to qualify as a genius, he only has to do create a single masterpiece once. Twain did it twice

By Chilton Williamson, Jr.

From the Magazine

Books

Radetzky marches on

From the sounds of Strauss to the stories of Joseph Roth

By David Pryce-Jones

From the Magazine

Podcasts

Comfortably numb: Sam Harris on meditation

Harris ignores the prerequisites for meditation that nearly all religions consider essential

By Emily Ferguson

From the Magazine

Television

Picking Apple

There probably is something here for everyone. But maybe only one thing

By Katrina Gulliver

From the Magazine

Book Review

Spells and bindings

The Madman’s Library: The Strangest Books, Manuscripts and Other Literary Curiosities from History by Edward Brooke-Hitching reviewed

By Dennis Duncan

From the Magazine

Book Review

Fear thy neighbor

The Twelve Lives of Alfred Hitchcock: An Anatomy of the Master of Suspense by Edward White reviewed

By Peter Tonguette

From the Magazine

Film

Here’s looking at you, Kid

One hundred years on from the seminal Chaplin flick

By Christopher Sandford

From the Magazine

Book Review

Missing the big picture

Francis Bacon: Revelations by Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan reviewed

By Martin Gayford

From the Magazine

Book Review

Loving the alien

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro reviewed

By Sameer Rahim

From the Magazine

Television

The third degree

ZeroZeroZero reviewed

By James Delingpole

From the Magazine

Book Review

Things go flying

The Haunting of Alma Fielding: A True Ghost Story by Kate Summerscale reviewed

By Susan Hill

From the Magazine

Life

Low Life

My French lessons with Lord Nelson

Wearing two masks struck me as being as absurd as wearing two hats and I laughed

By Jeremy Clarke

From the Magazine

Home

Whatever happened to the heroes?

Politicians as a class are almost without exception second- or third-rate people

By Chilton Williamson, Jr.

From the Magazine

Place

Under the skin of Seville

Four hundred years have passed since Seville was the greatest and most glamorous city on earth

By Lesley Downer

From the Magazine

High Life

An elegy on the end of elegance

People ached to have a good time — to splurge, to let go

By Taki

From the Magazine

Home

Books you shouldn’t read in public

To read is to invite derision, especially if you grew up in a working-class town

By Bill Kauffman

From the Magazine

Home

The art of mourning well

Following Mum’s death, I have been staying quietly at her home on the beach in a whirlpool of memories

By Aidan Hartley

From the Magazine

The church that’s hosted the Virgin Mary, Benjamin Franklin and Hugh Grant

St Bartholomew the Great will celebrate its 900th birthday in 2023

By Tom Holland

From the Magazine

The meaning of artichoke

Artichoke came into English in the 16th century from words already obscure in their derivation

By Dot Wordsworth

From the Magazine

Food and Drink

Food

The need to knead

Loafing, the Swedish way

By Calla Jones Corner

From the Magazine

Food

Dinner with Judy

A virtual party will have to do

By Timothy Jacobson

From the Magazine

Drink

Georgians on my mind

Amphora euphoria

By Roger Kimball

From the Magazine

Food

Hopping through Holy Week

Rabbits too

By Jane Stannus

From the Magazine