19 April 1999
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From the Editor…
Welcome to the New Statesman website. Whether you are a new reader or an existing one - online or via the magazine - I hope you'll enjoy the great writing, fresh ideas and provocative debate that make the New Statesman Britain's award-winning current affairs weekly
Cover story
Prepare for a brave new world
Forget the peace dividend. If we want to follow our ideals and protect human rights, we must spend far, far more on defence and aid
Features
The soldiers preferred Margaret
Can Tony Blair be an effective war leader? Only if he accepts that armies can't worry about political correctness, argues Antony Beevor
Where are my Muslim brethren?
Ziauddin Sardarfears another holocaust in Europe, but the Islamic states couldn't care less
Arise, Lord Kelvin of Currant Bun
. . . and Lord Paxman and Lady Adie. Quentin Letts thinks he has the answer to Labour's problems over how to create a new upper house
On the trail of the comeback kids
Both aged 45, both out of the front line, Peter Mandelson and Michael Portillo are learning the value of humility as they rebuild their careers. By Anne McElvoy
Scotland: the "fundies" keep quiet
As the election campaign starts, it looks like a scrap between social democrats. We'll hear from SNP fundamentalists when it's over, predicts Kirsty Milne
If Blair is Caesar, who is Brutus?
Stephen Dorrell advises the PM to re-read his Shakespeare, and ponder the lesson that mighty rulers are overthrown by their closest associates
Small, but perfectly prosperous
You probably haven't heard of St Barth in the Caribbean. But here, it is said, more foie gras is consumed than in any six square miles on earth
Will the NHS still want me when I'm 65?
If you're going to have a heart attack or stroke, don't wait till you're old, warnsClaire Rayner
Essay
The New Statesman Essay - No Americans, please, we're British
Jonathan Freedland laments his failure to shift an old left prejudice
Interview
The New Statesman Interview - Gordon Brown
"It is not true that British history is defined by mistrust of foreigners. We were internationalist and engaged." Gordon Brown interviewed
Culture
The great green book
Republished this month, Rachel Carson's Silent Spring jump-started the environmental movement. Colin Tudgeassesses how much - or how little - has changed since 1962
Warm Britannia
Design byHugh Aldersey-Williams
The world reshaped
Art byJames Hall
Women at work
Music 1 byRichard Cook
Bossa man
Music 2 byPhil Johnson
Books
The flight from certainty. Many of the arcane problems of philosophy are created by philosophy itself. The leading American scourge of relativists and postmodernists offers a way out of the maze
Mind, Language and Society: Doing Philosophy in the Real World John Searle Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 175pp, £12.99
God's own squad
Why Me? My Life as a Healer Eileen Drewery Headline, 251pp, £16.99
The mouse roars
The Roots of Romanticism Isaiah Berlin Chatto & Windus, 171pp, £20
Big-headed boy
Bruce Chatwin Nicholas Shakespeare The Harvill Press, 550pp, £20
Novel of the week
A Stairway to Paradise Madeleine St John Fourth Estate, 185pp, £10.99
Commentary: Small Presses. North meets South on the M1
Nicholas Royle on how his first novel was rescued from oblivion after years of rejection
