28 August 2000
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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
Secrecy laws will never be the same
The government's backdown over the Shayler affair is a sure sign that changes are afoot for freedom of expression
Features
We get the politicians we deserve
Westminster
America's safety may cost our lives
If the US has its way, Britain will become home to its missile shield. So what happens, asks John Lloyd, when a power-mad despot guns for the Yanks?
Time to deal with a typical British fudge
The ethics of embryo research have not been addressed
Men who spend too much
A new survey shows that "retail therapy" is now a male thing. Quentin Lettsreports
"I do" - but not for very long, thanks
Moral crusaders can't force people to live happily ever after, argues Barbara Gunnell
Dyke drags us into a cultural desert
The BBC's new director general seems determined to introduce themed channels. It is a move he might live to regret
Could Corsica break up France?
The spirit of devolution has crossed the Channel, and a clannish island in the Mediterranean looks set to lead the way, reports David Lawday
Young women going into the dark
In Bangladesh, families push their daughters into marriage when they are still children because they think they are safer that way, reports Jeremy Seabrook
Regulars
Arts & Culture
Garbage in, garbage out
The revolution in new technologies has brought unprecedented opportunities to the world. But, asks Roger Graef, is our expanding universe a dangerous illusion?
Love's a bitch
Edinburgh Festival - Bob Flynn finds merit in a controversial film that might never pass the censors
Television
Immaterial girls
Television - Andrew Billen demands more of a BBC documentary on modern-day geishas
Books
An American sublime. Scott Fitzgerald wrote perhaps the most read American novel of the 20th century. But he died prematurely, a broken alcoholic. Julian Evans celebrates the last of the romantics
Flappers and Philosophers
F Scott Fitzgerald Cambridge University Press, 430pp, £35
ISBN 0521402360
Trimalchio
F Scott Fitzgerald Cambridge University Press, 214pp, £30
A draught of vintage
A Short History of Wine
Rod Phillips Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, 416pp, £21
ISBN 0713994320
Clean mac brigade
Holistic Revolution
Edited by William Bloom Allen Lane, 416pp, £18.99
ISBN 0713994215
Lives of the Psychics
Fred M Frohock University of Chicago Press, 264pp, £17.50
Out of My Mind
Richard Bach Pan, 112pp, £5.99
Rumble in the jungle
In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz: living on the brink of disaster in the Congo
Michela Wrong Fourth Estate, 324pp, £13.99
ISBN 1841154210
Novel of the week
Sarah
J T LeRoy Bloomsbury, 166pp, £6.99
ISBN 0747549281
Observations
Letters to the Editor
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