FROM THE MAGAZINE

February 2021

Business

Fascist means, green ends

Stakeholder capitalism and climate corporatism

By Andrew Stuttaford

From the Magazine

International

Relative wealth

Will Kazakhstan’s elite keep it in the family?

By Francis Pike

From the Magazine

International

Retreat or defeat: can Biden extricate the US from Afghanistan?

‘If one soldier stays behind, we will continue our jihad’

By Paul Wood

From the Magazine

Politics

Kamala Harris’s Orwellian future

Having a bad memory is going to be absolutely crucial in the Harris-Biden era

By Roger Kimball

From the Magazine

International

Why is Jacinda Ardern still so popular?

The New Zealander’s star shines, somehow

By Oliver Hartwich

From the Magazine

Education

Go figure

I have a lot to learn from my experiment in skating, beyond just spins and jumps

By Mary Kate Skehan

From the Magazine

Internet

Capital punishment

The letters and the law

By Christopher Howse

From the Magazine

Politics

Oligarchy in America

Crossing the Rubicon of class

By Dominic Green

From the Magazine

Drinking my way through the Capitol riots

One of the bartenders put her head in her hands and started crying

By Amber Duke

From the Magazine

Politics

Manchin of the moment

Which way for the man from West Virginia?

By W. James Antle III

From the Magazine

Europe

When migrants come, their culture does too

Politicians and the media have done their best to downplay the post-2015 wave of harassment and assaults

By Ayaan Hirsi Ali

From the Magazine

Internet

Well, whatever, never mind

My coping mechanism has been the same for decades: laughter, cynicism and mocking irreverence

By Bridget Phetasy

From the Magazine

Spectator Editorial

Trump’s legacy

Just two years from now, the only surviving relic of Trump’s policy agenda may be his 2017 tax cut

By Spectator Editorial

From the Magazine

Politics

Is Trumpism toxic?

Has the right gone wrong? Or was Trump its last chance? A debate between two Spectator writers

By Matt Labash and Chris Buskirk

From the Magazine

Business

Introducing Wokeyleaks

‘The character trait that typically accompanies fame is extreme narcissism’

By They/Them

From the Magazine

Books + Arts

Exhibitions

Old Masters, new look

The Met has cleaned up its act

By Andrew L. Shea

From the Magazine

Music

Confessions of a hype artist

Where there’s pop, there’s hype — and there’s nothing wrong with that

By Luke Haines

From the Magazine

Film

The Venus de Marlene

Dietrich is a monument of Western culture

By Tanjil Rashid

From the Magazine

Music

About Schmidt

Franz Schmidt spent his career trying to escape the suburbs of central European music

By Richard Bratby

From the Magazine

Books

Alison Lurie, 1926-2020

In memory of a friend

By Elisa Segrave

From the Magazine

Music

The joy of listening to old pianists

As he gets older, Barenboim has become more and more keen on recording Beethoven sonatas in front of audiences

By Damian Thompson

From the Magazine

Music Review

Songs of freedom

Remain unmoved to the songs on Lifeline and you’re made of much sterner stuff

By Jacob Heilbrunn

From the Magazine

Books

City of gold

Peter Ackroyd’s London pride

By Sinclair McKay

From the Magazine

Podcasts

Pod-ology

You will find yourself coming back to this podcast like a favorite book

By Emily Ferguson

From the Magazine

Books

Oracles of the Sybille

Sybille Bedford: A Life by Selina Hastings reviewed

By David Pryce-Jones

From the Magazine

Book Review

Make the audience happy

Mike Nichols: A Life by Mark Harris reviewed

By Gavin Smith

From the Magazine

Television

Bridgerton to nowhere

The storyline is Jane Austen with all the plot and nuance and character sophistication removed

By James Delingpole

From the Magazine

Books

The travels of Robert D. Kaplan

How an American outsider wrote the history of our future

By David Patrikarakos

From the Magazine

Life

Are you tired of experts?

The true scientist ‘believes the science’ only provisionally

By Chilton Williamson, Jr.

From the Magazine

Low Life

What French women want

For sheer gale-force-10 sexual power, I must mention Christine, a hardworking local waitress in her early thirties

By Jeremy Clarke

From the Magazine

Place

Lake life

The best way to see Lake Geneva is from the water

By William Cook

From the Magazine

Home

My failed attempt to unite the Upstate New York literary scene

If the stars of the generation then passing burned less brightly in the firmament, well, then it was up to me to illuminate them

By Bill Kauffman

From the Magazine

Home

Come back, doggers, all is forgiven

They cause much less mayhem than the cyclists who have driven them away

By Melissa Kite

From the Magazine

The unfortunate misuse of ‘fortuitous’

An airplane crashing into your house would be fortuitous, but not, from most points of view, fortunate

By Dot Wordsworth

From the Magazine

The rise and fall of mink

Farmed minks live in battery cages, tightly confined

By Simon Barnes

From the Magazine

Food and Drink

Food

Fresh food, fresher air

Dining out in a Chicago winter

By Ed Zotti

From the Magazine

Drink

Holy spirit: how the monks make Chartreuse

They spend their days in prayer, manual labor and sacred study

By Jane Stannus

From the Magazine

Drink

Noble Rotters

Writing the book on London’s coolest wines

By Lisse Garnett

From the Magazine

Drink

The screw-top letters

The necessity of snobbery

By Roger Kimball

From the Magazine

Food

Raclette sports

A cheese for all seasons

By Calla Jones Corner

From the Magazine