11 March 2002
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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
George W Bush's unlikely bedfellows
Who would have expected Hitchens, Amis and Rushdie to support a Republican president in a war? But John Lloyd finds sense and logic in their stand
Features
Can Mr Huggy bring peace?
Europe may yet succeed in the Middle East where America has failed - thanks to a wily Spaniard
Vegetarians who roast humans
Gujarat, north India, reveres Gandhi and some of its people won't eat onions for fear of hurting microbes. So why is it now the scene of such bloody violence?
Blair counts the counties out
The creation of new regional assemblies - toothless, partially unelected bodies that will usurp existing councils - is an act of gross cynicism, argues David Cox
Will Europe become anti-social?
Robert Taylor finds new Labour ready to lead the deregulation charge at this month's EU summit
The New Statesman Special Report - The rebranding of a disease
Should we trust the scientific data on the effects of drugs? Not if the case of depression, for which pharmaceutical companies found a new definition, is anything to go by. Jerome Burne reports
How the west helps the vote-riggers
When an election result in a former communist country is approved by outside observers, we assume it's honest. Not so, reports Mark Almond
The rise and rise of the hood
Annalisa Barbieri on how the hoodlum of the wardrobe became a fashion item
Now they are downright unpleasant
Richard Pattinson was prepared even to defend the Dome. But he's had enough of new Labour
The Coca-Cola man who had a vision
Craig Cohon got very near the top in selling fizzy drinks. Then he heard Bill Clinton speak and gave it all up to help the poor. Mark Leonard reports
Culture
Everything and the Kitchen Sink
Screaming popes, the Colony Room, Geometry of Fear, men behaving badly: this was the art scene in the 1950s, and George Melly was happy to be there
Barbie's birthday
Architecture - Lilian Pizzichini on a living model of 1950s kitsch and freakery
Holiday snaps
Art - Ned Denny on how America's 19th-century artists travelled in search of the sublime
Psychic purgatory
Opera - Peter Conrad enjoys a thrilling double bill, but is unimpressed by a dull masked ball
Film
Wet and windy
Film - Philip Kerr finds the Shipping Forecast more exciting than this adaptation of a Proulx novel
Television
Heaven for eggheads
Television - Andrew Billen likes the new, self-assured face of the arts on BBC4
Books
A fatal choice. When Irish terrorists murdered Airey Neave in the car park of the House of Commons, they chose their target well. Had he lived, the IRA would not today have victory in its grasp. Norman Tebbit on the elusive life and violent death of a Tory enigma
Public servant, secret agent Paul Routledge Fourth Estate, 392pp, £16.99 ISBN 1841152447
Crime and punishment
A Cold Case Philip Gourevitch Picador,184pp, £12.99 ISBN 0330485040
Good-time girls
The Book Of The Courtesans: A Catalogue of their Virtues Susan Griffin Macmillan, 324pp, £18.99 ISBN 0767904508
A war of ghosts
The Secret State: Whitehall and the Cold War Peter Hennessy Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, 234pp, £16.99 ISBN 0713996269
The big man
Degrees in Violence: Robert Mugabe and the struggle for power in Zimbabwe David Blair Continuum, 258pp, £16.99 ISBN 0826459749
Novel of the week
The Deadly Space Between Patricia Duncker Picador, 246pp, £14.99 ISBN 0330490095
Antique roadshow
Imperial Vanities: the Adventures of the Baker Brothers and Gordon of Khartoum Brian Thompson HarperCollins, 271pp, £17.99 ISBN 0002571889
Murder down under
A Child's Book of True Crime Chloe Hooper Jonathan Cape, 238pp, £12.99 ISBN 0224062379
Paperback reader
Something like a house Sid Smith Picador, 227pp, £6.99 ISBN 0330480871
Oral excess
The Sea Kingdoms: The story of Celtic Britain and Ireland Alistair Moffat HarperCollins, 316pp, £19.99 ISBN 0002571889
