FROM THE MAGAZINE

October 2021

Who wrote the book of rock?

One of the reasons I wanted to write my book was that I was hoping it would explain my life to me

By Steven Van Zandt

From the Magazine

Politics

Worse than porn

I am a ‘media personality’ who occasionally opens my pie-hole on conservative media outlets. I’ve even appeared on Fox

By Bridget Phetasy

From the Magazine

Middle East

History returns for Putin and Erdogan

The era of good feelings between Russia and Turkey seems to be over

By Sean McMeekin

From the Magazine

Science & Tech

The United States of Fear

The reasons why international travel is off-limits and shameful have nothing to do with medical facts

By Karol Markowicz

From the Magazine

Politics

Joe Biden’s Swamp

The Biden family is in deep

By Matthew Continetti

From the Magazine

Politics

The great unraveling

The Biden administration is an unmitigated disaster unfolding in real time

By Roger Kimball

From the Magazine

Internet

If the Croc fits

The most unflattering shoe to come to market in generations is now ubiquitous among disaffected youth

By Chadwick Moore

From the Magazine

Politics

Jeopardy! is in trouble

Have enough cleft-toed demisexual non-binary POCs been contestants on Jeopardy!?

By Matt Purple

From the Magazine

Business

Crypto casino

The entrepreneurial spirit of Generation Z has become notorious

By Mary Kate Skehan

From the Magazine

International

The myth of the good Afghan war

Nothing we did in Afghanistan really worked

By Jesse Singal

From the Magazine

Politics

The vanishing presidency

Without ‘competence’ as its rationale, what does the Biden administration have to fall back on?

By Daniel McCarthy

From the Magazine

China

China’s #MeToo moment

China’s feminists are fighting back

By Ian Williams

From the Magazine

Politics

Hunter Biden, artist of modern life

Without vision, training or talent, Hunter Biden deigns to glue his crippling jewels onto the back of our society

By James Panero

From the Magazine

Miami state of mind

Miami is more spiritually American — in the Platonic, pre-woke sense — than any other city

By Alex Perez

From the Magazine

Politics

Life in LA is murder

There is no law in California

By John Meroney

From the Magazine

International

Return to Kabul

Have the Taliban changed or is it just a facade to get foreign aid?

By Christina Lamb

From the Magazine

Education

How Harvard went woke

Harvard University claims to be America’s finest — but it has become a hotbed of timidity and bigotry

By Ruth Wisse

From the Magazine

Politics

Trump’s second wave

Is Trump surfing to another Republican nomination?

By Jay Caruso

From the Magazine

Spectator Editorial

The disconnect

We are not yet a year into this presidency, but it is already in trouble

By Spectator Editorial

From the Magazine

Books + Arts

Book Review

An orange or an egg? Determining the shape of the world

Latitude: The True Story of the World’s First Scientific Expedition by Nicholas Crane reviewed

By Simon Winchester

From the Magazine

Book Review

Dracula’s children

Children of the Night: The Strange and Epic Tale of Modern Romania by Paul Kenyon reviewed

By Tessa Dunlop

From the Magazine

Theater

Shakespeare is getting trigger warnings

Shakespeare, after decades of being found to be Problematic, is now being reclaimed as the wokemeister-in-chief

By Alexander Larman

From the Magazine

Book Review

The AI future looks positively rosy

12 Bytes: How We Got Here, Where We Might Go Next by Jeanette Winterson reviewed

By Steven Poole

From the Magazine

Music

The triumph of bedroom pop

From Joe Meek to Taylor Swift: a short history of lo-fi

By Robert Barry

From the Magazine

Exhibitions

Flagging energy

Jasper Johns, an art-world darling for decades, is getting a massive museum retrospective

By Andrew L. Shea

From the Magazine

Book Review

How Hitler’s great gamble nearly paid off

The Hitler Years: Disaster, 1940-1945 by Frank McDonough reviewed

By Nigel Jones

From the Magazine

Film

Time for Another Round

Another Round reviewed

By Nicky Otis Smith

From the Magazine

Exhibitions

Titian meets Isabella Stewart Gardner

The masterpieces of Titian’s old age have come to Boston

By Martin Gayford

From the Magazine

Book Review

W.G. Sebald’s borrowed truths and barefaced lies

Speak, Silence: In Search of W.G. Sebald by Carole Angier reviewed

By Lucasta Miller

From the Magazine

Book Review

Lucy Ellmann is angry about everything, especially men

Things Are Against Us by Lucy Ellmann reviewed

By Sarah Ditum

From the Magazine

Book Review

Oliver Cromwell: ruthless in battle — but nice to his men

The Making of Oliver Cromwell by Ronald Hutton reviewed

By Marcus Nevitt

From the Magazine

Life

Home

I’m back for the Almanac

Benjamin Franklin’s masterpiece goes on forever

By Calla Jones Corner

From the Magazine

Place

Bog bodies: mysteries of the Iron Age

There is a theory in Ireland that the country’s bog bodies may be the remains of failed kings, ritually killed on Samhain

By Gus Carter

From the Magazine

Language

The link between spick and span, spanking and spoon

Whatever spick and span reminds us of, it is as an idiom with a cheery meaning of its own

By Dot Wordsworth

From the Magazine

Home

Americans, London needs you

I wonder if London — or any of the great cities — will ever be the same again?

By Cosmo Landesman

From the Magazine

Low Life

A tale of many swimming pools

Oscar and Klynton are visiting us in Provence and a 100-degree heatwave has hit. There’s only one place to be

By Jeremy Clarke

From the Magazine

Home

Modern English

The English language as written today is often nearly incomprehensible on first reading

By Chilton Williamson, Jr.

From the Magazine

Sports

What’s in a name?

I pour myself a tumbler of rotgut and settle in with the names, these glorious names

By Bill Kauffman

From the Magazine

High Life

The Swiss are united by a common cause — making money

They’re funny, the Swiss, known as dullards because they lack Italian fire and Spanish passion, but what would we do without them?

By Taki

From the Magazine

The Romans would not have made the same mistakes in Afghanistan

Tacitus made the Caledonian leader Calgacus remark that Romans ‘make a desert and call it peace’

By Peter Jones

From the Magazine

Place

Place

Say yes to Yerevan

Yerevan is a living palimpsest of history and fable

By Kapil Komireddi

From the Magazine

Place

In search of the Iliad

Few places can conjure up such stories of love and loss, homesickness and heroism, gallantry and grief as Troy

By Dea Birkett

From the Magazine

Food and Drink

Drink

Condiments and conservatives

Give the People what we want

By Roger Kimball

From the Magazine

Food

Burrata inamorata

A thrifty Italian is to thank for burrata

By Jane Stannus

From the Magazine

Food

The hell of London’s ‘American’ candy stores

Real Americans don’t go to these candy stores

By Hannah Moore

From the Magazine