FROM THE MAGAZINE

January 2023

Spectator Editorial

After the cryptocrash

The cacophonous collapse of FTX is the soundtrack of one economic era giving way to another

By Spectator Editorial

From the Magazine

How will a GOP Congress stop a repeat of the Hunter Biden scandal?

Life as the Laptop-from-Hellraiser

By Emma-Jo Morris

From the Magazine

Business

How Big Philanthropy became Big Grift

Effective Altruism is ultimately rooted in saviorism

By Leighton Woodhouse

From the Magazine

Business

The great anti-ESG backlash

Inside the campaign to get politics out of investing

By Oliver Wiseman

From the Magazine

Education

How parents are learning to fight for their children’s education

The parental rights movement isn’t going away — and they’re getting better at organizing

By Amber Duke

From the Magazine

Politics

The liberal-conservative tug of war for the GOP

The party faces a choice between its nationalist and liberal wings

By Daniel McCarthy

From the Magazine

Culture

A junkie’s pride

I first quit a substance at the tender age of nineteen, when heroin brought me to my knees

By Bridget Phetasy

From the Magazine

Policy

Why Eric Adams has failed to control crime

The New York mayor has been in office a year. A sense of unease still pervades the five boroughs

By Charles Fain Lehman

From the Magazine

Politics

Why globalism is the enemy of freedom

Like The Wizard of Oz, it is all show and no substance

By Roger Kimball

From the Magazine

Politics

Randi Weingarten isn’t going anywhere

I’m pretty sure that nobody I observed on November 7 was ready to give up fighting. Not Randi Weingarten, of course

By John R. MacArthur

From the Magazine

Politics

Will Republicans learn from the midterms?

Trump promised they’d get tired of winning, but at this point they’re tired of losing

By Ben Domenech

From the Magazine

Science & Tech

The Greeks’ curiosity extended far beyond the cerebral

What they would have given to be alive today!

By Peter Jones

From the Magazine

Culture

An ode to smoking

2022, I decided, would be my year of the cigarette

By Kara Kennedy

From the Magazine

Culture

Dry January is cruel

The season for porters, stouts, red ales, Bailey’s, eggnog and brandy is the bleak midwinter

By Matt Purple

From the Magazine

Culture

Speaking truth to antisemitism

Jews are a unique group. We have been chased around for millennia

By Jesse Singal

From the Magazine

Culture

The Lone Star State’s new poker boom

The Texas formula is getting ready to go nationwide

By Neal Pollack

From the Magazine

Politics

Why Don should make way for Ron

The GOP can still make 2024 their year

By Ayaan Hirsi Ali

From the Magazine

International

Edward Luttwak, the uncontained strategist

He is a product — and the embodiment — of twentieth-century conflict

By David Patrikarakos

From the Magazine

Books + Arts

Books

The return of Bret Easton Ellis

The American Psycho and Less Than Zero author discusses his first novel in thirteen years

By Elle Nash

From the Magazine

Books

The publishing mega-merger that wasn’t

Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster have failed to merge

By Alexander Larman

From the Magazine

Books

The spy who loved me

Suleika Dawson’s account of her affair with novelist John le Carré has caused controversy. But she is unrepentant

By Brice Stratford

From the Magazine

Book Review

Stephen Amidon’s day of the locust

A new novel explores the lengths communities will go to protect their own

By Philip Womack

From the Magazine

Book Review

Bob Dylan’s tower of song

The Philosophy of Modern Song by Bob Dylan reviewed

By Anne Margaret Daniel

From the Magazine

Book Review

Was the Queen Mother ever really funny?

Do Let’s Have Another Drink!: The Dry Wit and Fizzy Life of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother by Gareth Russell reviewed

By Harry Mount

From the Magazine

Theater

An ingloriously dumb adaptation

Almost Famous fails to make the jump from screen to stage

By Robert S. Erickson

From the Magazine

Exhibitions

Edward Hopper’s America

The popular perception of the loneliness in the painter’s work could not be more wrong

By William Newton

From the Magazine

Film

Cleopatra still dazzles sixty years later

The film is, above all, an Elizabeth Taylor-worshipping vehicle

By Art Tavana

From the Magazine

Life

High Life

The golden age of motor sport

Along with many other things, dashing, death-defying racing drivers are no more

By Taki

From the Magazine

Low Life

I dropped a morphine capsule in my Moscow Mule

Would it provide the mental lift-off necessary to enjoy our restaurant outing?

By Jeremy Clarke

From the Magazine

London Life

The other cancel culture

Like the cancel culture of the woke, the cancel culture of friendship is made possible by technology

By Cosmo Landesman

From the Magazine

American Life

Voting with a vengeance

An act that I have perversely enjoyed for most of my life lost much of its luster a score of years ago

By Bill Kauffman

From the Magazine

Prejudices

The left’s politics of catastrophe

Running our lives is the sort of project to which fallen humanity is unsuited

By Chilton Williamson, Jr.

From the Magazine

Place

Place

Self-preservation in Sweden and Denmark

The trip grew from my preoccupation with two Nordic lifestyle concepts currently in vogue: Swedish lagom and Danish hygge

By Amy Rose Everett

From the Magazine

Place

‘Country collectors’ go to war over Ukraine

The close-knit, extreme-travel community is divided over the conflict

By Dave Seminara

From the Magazine

Food and Drink

Food

Japanese food is overrated

Taken too far, Japanese food culture can seem precious, pretentious and sterile

By Philip Patrick

From the Magazine

Drink

The comfort of drinking at Lucy’s

I once said when it closes, it’ll be time to leave New York. That was seventeen years ago

By Chadwick Moore

From the Magazine

Drink

Buried treasures of the Broadmoor

Spencer Penrose’s Colorado paradise makes the case for booze

By Sean Thomas

From the Magazine

Drink

The best mocktails for Dry January

Non-drinkers have more interesting options these days

By Mary Kate Skehan

From the Magazine

Drink

The thrill of bourbon collecting is in the chase

There was once a time when a man would find a bourbon he liked and stick with it. Today, that is no longer sufficient

By Rich Cromwell

From the Magazine

Drink

Saintly succor

Today, St. Émilion is home to some of the most luscious and delectable red wines in Bordeaux

By Roger Kimball

From the Magazine

And Finally

And Finally

What do Ukrainians mean when they say they’ve liberated a ‘settlement?’

We learn about Ukraine through this war in a way most of us would not have done otherwise

By Dot Wordsworth

From the Magazine

And Finally

The history of Woolrich jackets

The company now caters to hip commuters, with an ‘outdoor heart, urban spirit’ tagline

By Teresa Mull

From the Magazine