Prospect

Fidel Castro’s recent intestinal surgery led to a level of coverage in the US media usually reserved for rock stars and champion athletes. What is this fascination with the ruler of a small island nation? Is it the tempestuous cold war history, Cuba’s close proximity to Florida, memories of the Elián González custody battle of 2000?

Certainly all of these are important. But when it comes to America’s political leaders’ obsession, the answer is more fundamental. Simply put, Fidel has a… more

The Bush administration is, for once, correct when it says that Europe needs to be much more serious about combating terrorism. Europe is in much more danger than the US. Its vulnerability is vastly increased by the presence of large and disaffected Muslim minorities. The decision of several European countries to support US actions in the Middle East inevitably makes them targets. In fact, there is a good chance that the US and Israel will eventually plunge into conflict with… more

If, as Carlyle believed, "The history of the world is but the biography of great men," then William F Buckley--80 in November--rates a place in the history of our time. Fifty years ago, Buckley, the New York city-born heir to a Texas oil fortune, started a magazine with the express purpose of making his historical mark. In the first issue of National Review, dated 19th November 1955, he declared that his new publication "stands athwart history, yelling Stop." Today, at… more

From London and Berlin to Sydney and San Francisco, civic authorities agree that the key to urban prosperity is appealing to the "hipster set" of gays, twentysomethings and young creatives. But the only evidence for this idea comes from the dot-com boom of the late 1990s -- -and that time is over

The world's great cities face serious, even catastrophic problems. Terrorists have planted bombs in London's Underground and bus systems. Floods have wiped out… more

Pity the poor mandarin in a modern western democracy. In Britain, the senior civil servant is a figure of fun; the idea that the man in Whitehall might know best is regarded across the political spectrum as an absurd anachronism. In France, economic stagnation is sometimes blamed on the once-mighty enarchie, with the implication that France would be better off under the leadership of US-style MBAs. In the US, "mandarin" is a term of abuse reserved for members of the… more

"They will not change our way of life," the Queen declared on Friday 8th July. Following the al Qaeda attacks on 9/11, American leaders similarly insisted that their country's libertarian way of life would not change in response to the threat of terrorism.

The sentiment is admirable, but as a policy it is mistaken. We who live in liberal societies like Britain and America should change our way of life, to make ourselves less vulnerable to terrorism.

This is a pessimistic… more

The Power of Nightmares is arguably the most important film yet made about the "war on terror." The three-part television documentary by Adam Curtis shown last autumn on BBC2-and now turned into a three-hour documentary feature film-is more intellectually engaging, more historically probing and more provocative than any of its rivals, including Fahrenheit 9/11. But although the new film version has been shown at Cannes and at a few festivals in the US, it has yet to find an American… more

Is the United States turning into the Republic of Gilead? That was the name of the theocratic Christian America that Margaret Atwood imagined in her novel The Handmaid's Tale. Following the November election in the US, a map circulating on the internet showed the blue states of the east and west coasts annexed to Canada, with the red-state portions of the country that had voted Republican labelled "Jesusland."

Can everyone on earth be rich? Not rich in relative terms -- in a world of billionaires, millionaires would feel poor -- but in terms of the lifestyle choices that today only the rich enjoy: in particular, in stuff (personal technology), space (low-density living in proximity to nature), and speed (geographic mobility). The world's population is expected to stabilise at around 9bn and then decline.

Can 9bn people enjoy stuff, space and speed?

The austerity school says no. The… more

If ever a country deserved to be satirised, it is the contemporary United States. The largest state in the union has just elected as governor an Austrian bodybuilder and movie star. The newly appointed deputy under-secretary of defence for intelligence, William G Boykin, has shown church audiences photos of what he claims are "demonic presences" over Muslim cities.

The president of the country, the talentless son of a former president, has killed perhaps as many as 10,000 Iraqi civilians in… more