21 April 2003
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From the Editor…
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Cover story
The road to Damascus
In Doha, the message is relentless: all of a sudden, the problem is Syria and the man who took tea with the Queen only months ago has stocks of nerve gas
Features
Too much grief and death
Lindsey Hilsum, in her Baghdad diary of the last days of the war, records how one terror succeeded another
Unfit for the burdens of empire
An extension of the war would suit Bush nicely because it would distract attention from economic problems right up to next year's election. But can the US really carry out the role of an imperial power?
How Andrew Marr got carried away
How Andrew Marr got carried away
Marooned in mid-Atlantic
Robin Cook argues that the PM must restore Britain's place in Europe by keeping his distance from Bush. But will he now be tempted to signal endorsement of the president's re-election?
A bunch of cocktail-swilling foreigners
The United Nations is viewed with contempt in the US and only one role is envisaged for it: as a rubber stamp for American policies. From Andrew Stephen in Washington
Now here is a man we can talk to
Why do we hear so little nowadays about Gaddafi? He was once the biggest rogue of all. Annette MacKenzie explains
Our strange friends in the south
Only four African countries supported the war, and their leaders all have a taste for invading their neighbours. Richard Dowden fears they will be tempted to indulge it
The aid agencies fear collateral damage
The aid agencies fear collateral damage
Why religion is good for us
Theodore Dalrymple, an atheist, argues belief in God makes you a better person, both morally and practically
When the sums don't add up
Schools governors are setting illegal budgets, and risking personal bankruptcy. Francis Beckett explains why
Make our cities green
Schemes for tower blocks are being dusted off - with parks rather than streets in the sky. But David Nicholson-Lord argues that the passion for "compact" urban development is dangerously wrong
Essay
NS Essay - 'Capitalism itself is a false target; the evil is the form we have now, which Jefferson, Madison and Keynes all warned against'
Even Gordon Brown and Clare Short want corporations to get stuck in to poor countries and make them more "efficient". They are misguided, argues Colin Tudge
Regulars
Cristina Odone thinks Brits give Tuscany the blues
No wonder the Tuscans are depressed; they are overrun by the British
Darcus Howe defends chilling out on the street corner
Many of us think that standing about is what street corners are for
Mark Thomas sees Geoff Hoon as an anarchist hero
Geoff Hoon, who described Iraqi looting as an attempt at "liberating" old regime property, sounds so much like an anarchist that May Day could find him marching in the streets
Competition
Win vouchers to spend at any Tesco store
Culture
A talent to offend
Spike Lee's films provoke and perplex. He has even been accused of "recycling racial trash". But it is this uneasiness that makes his work unmissable
Dead blank
Photography - Hadley Freeman is disturbed by images that reveal fashion's ambivalent attitude to strong women
Homeric epic
Anniversary - Zoe Williams ponders the deeper meanings and significance of The Simpsons
The story of O
Celebrity - Stephanie Smith on the return of Oprah Winfrey's maligned book club
Film
Heavenly creatures
Film - Philip Kerr looks back on the long tradition of blue-eyed celluloid Christs
Theatre
Damaged people
Theatre - Sheridan Morley enjoys Chekhov's Three Sisters but is less impressed by a play about rotten fathers
Television
Touched by God
Television - Is religious belief just a form of epilepsy? Andrew Billen enjoys a nutty documentary
The Fan
The fan - Hunter Davies crouches behind the sofa
It may be a couch or a sofa but, whatever it is, I crouched behind it
Books
The delusion of world capitalism. What is the truth about globalisation? Is it a benign force for prosperity or a ruthless engine of injustice? Philippe Legrain weighs the evidence
Going Off the Rails: global capital and the crisis of legitimacy John Plender John Wiley & Sons, 296pp, £19.99 ISBN 047085314X People Before Profit: the new globalisation in an age of terror, big money and economic crisis Charles Derber Souvenir Press, 324pp, £9.99 One No, Many Yeses: a journey to the heart of the global resistance movement Paul Kingsnorth Free Press, 320pp, £10
The beast stirs. Thomas Hoobes is often dismissed as a reactionary thinker. But in fact he was a pioneering liberal who has much to teach us today. By John Gray
Aspects of Hobbes Noel Malcolm Clarendon Press, 644pp, £40 ISBN 0199247145
Hang 'em high. Razor Smith enjoys a history of the brutalised criminal classes of the capital
London's Underworld: three centuries of vice and crime Fergus Linnane Robson Books, 288pp, £16.95 ISBN 186105548X
No liberal utopia
A Brief History of Crime Peter Hitchens Atlantic Books, 315pp, £16.99 ISBN 1843541483
Home alone
Yoga for People Who Can't Be Bothered to Do It Geoff Dyer Abacus, 238pp, £10.99 ISBN 0316725072
Platform
W G Sebald, who died in a road accident at the end of 2001, is one of the most acclaimed writers of modern times. But for Julian Evans he is a charlatan and his books are untrue
