Dinosaurs, dogma and the Victorian mind
The ‘monsters’ dug from the cliffs of Lyme Regis did not sit well with the literal reading of Genesis – but many other issues contributed to the famed Victorian crisis of faith
The skull beneath the skin: Ghost Pains, by Jessi Jezewska Stevens, reviewed
Pain lurks below the surface of these sardonic short stories. Happiness is fleeting, and ‘we carry death within us like a stone within a fruit’, one narrator observes
The lonely passions of Carson McCullers
McCullers’s acclaimed first novel, written when she was 23, drew her into the orbit of several female writers with whom she fell in love – but it was never reciprocated for long
The many Jesus-like figures of the ancient world
Early Christianity positively welcomed comparisons between Jesus and Socrates, Asclepius, Emperor Vespasian and Apollonius of Tyana, according to Catherine Nixey
The fresh, forceful voice of Frantz Fanon
The Marxist from Martinique became a rallying figure for anti-colonial movements across the world. But might he have revised his violent message had he lived longer?
An unenviable mission: Clear, by Carys Davies, reviewed
It is 1843, the year of the Great Disruption in the Scottish Church, and an impoverished minister is being paid to clear a lonely North Sea island of any remaining inhabitants
Before the Blitz: the dynamism of British architecture
Many competing styles flourished in the interwar years, including functionalism, art deco, neoclassicism, seaside moderne, mock-Mayan and Egyptian revivalism
Joe Biden and the war on truth
I had been told that Joe Biden, the president of the United States, would be delivering the 2024 State of…
Why Germans don’t want to send Taurus missiles to Ukraine
Yet again the question of whether to send arms to Ukraine is plaguing Olaf Scholz’s chancellorship. The issue was once…
Will Republican leaders apologise over ‘Stakeknife’?
‘Stakeknife’, a double agent who was an informant for the British Army while working within the innermost counsels of the…
Meghan Markle’s PR push
The Queen of Privacy is doing it again. After a brief hiatus from the spotlight, the Duchess of Sussex has…
Meet Portugal’s new hard-right kingmakers
Portugal goes to the polls this weekend for parliamentary elections and it looks likely to become the latest European country…
Britain’s adoration of the NHS is nothing to celebrate
‘The NHS is, rightly, the biggest reason most of us are proud to be British,’ Jeremy Hunt said in his…
Spanish soldiers have exposed the flaw in gender self-ID
Dozens of male Spanish soldiers have legally changed their gender, allegedly to claim benefits intended for women. In doing so, the soldiers have exposed the vacuity of Spain’s…
Will the NHS step count app get people back to work?
Is there really any point to the NHS app monitoring people’s step count? This is the latest announcement from Health…
What May’s departure reveals about the Tory party
The tributes are pouring in for Theresa May after the former prime minister announced that she will be stepping down…
The problem with trying to resuscitate dying languages
Ross Perlin is determined to support the ‘last speakers’ of endangered tongues, such as Seke. But if these speakers really are the last, they are not, in any real sense, speaking