28 April 2003

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

Jason Cowley, Editor, New Statesman

Cover story

The global backlash

You think you know this story. You don't. In a journey from Soweto to Papua to Mexico, Paul Kingsnorth saw a revolution in the making, bigger than most people suspect

By Paul Kingsnorth

Features

The Brits really are superior

By Richard Dowden

Richard Dowden explains why the American forces, which operate like the German army and gear everything to military might, will make bad peacekeepers in Iraq

The Pentagon basks in triumph

By John Kampfner

The famed military-industrial complex has won, while the diplomats have lost all clout. John Kampfner reports

The party of the martyrs

By Ziauddin Sardar

The Shia branch of Islam was born in violent death and has suffered from centuries of persecution. The US needs to understand that, if it wants a better Iraq

I just rang to say, ''Shalom!''

By Michael Bond

Michael Bond reports on how ordinary Israelis and Palestinians, using a special telephone service, have found a way to talk across their war-divided communities

Hero of the shanty towns

By Grace Livingstone

Grace Livingstone in Venezuela finds that, while the liberal middle class has deserted Chavez, the poor haven't

Apocalypse probably postponed

By Theodore Dalrymple

Theodore Dalrymple advises that we still have more to fear from flu and heart disease than from Sars

Learn to love the lorry

By Dave Young

Dave Young, a former truck driver, argues that, in a service economy, rail isn't the solution to moving goods

The return of the siren

By Annalisa Barbieri

Jumpsuits were fashionable in the 1939-45 war. Now they're back. Coincidence? By Annalisa Barbieri

Regulars

New Statesman Leader

Why teachers are fed up

John Pilger finds journalism rotting away

By John Pilger

Something deeply corrupt is consuming journalism. A war so one-sided it was hardly a war was reported like a Formula One race, as the teams sped to the chequered flag in Baghdad

Darcus Howe causes trouble in Tobago

By Darcus Howe

In Tobago, I am told to move my beach chair to accommodate a white couple

Competition

Win vouchers to spend at any Tesco store

Culture

An imperialist who is still venerated

By Andrew Roberts

Churchill-mania is such that people will pay £6,000 for his slippers. Andrew Roberts visits the restored Cabinet War Rooms and tries to explain our enduring fascination

Portraits of a lady

By Ann Widdecombe

Art - Ann Widdecombe is not impressed by an exhibition of the many faces of Maggie

Apocalypse now

By Peter Conrad

Opera - Peter Conrad finds many pertinent echoes in Berlioz's account of the fall of Troy

The best of Baghdad

By William Cook

Gallery - William Cook discovers an outpost of Iraqi creativity on Fulham High Street

Film

The Italians did it better

By Philip Kerr

Film - Philip Kerr on a comedy that made him laugh only once - at the end credits

Theatre

Conjuring up the old magic

By Sheridan Morley

Theatre - Sheridan Morley enjoys tributes to Alfred Hitchcock and Tommy Cooper

Television

It takes one to know one

By Andrew Billen

Television - Andrew Billen sees genius in Alan Yentob's documentary about Leonardo da Vinci

The Fan

The fan - Hunter Davies threatens to join the Spuro-sceptics

By Hunter Davies

If my team can't pass these five tests, I'll be joining the Spuro-sceptics

Books

The terrible beauty of fighting. Once, a kind of manly jauntiness was the proper attitude for a witness of war; now, compassion is required. Maurice Walsh wonders if either strikes the right note

By Maurice Walsh

Depictions and Images of War in Edwardian Newspapers (1899-1914) Glenn R Wilkinson Palgrave, 185pp, £45 ISBN 0333717430 Jarhead: a marine's chronicle of the Gulf war Anthony Swofford Scribner, 260pp, £14.99 We Did Nothing: why the truth doesn't always come out when the UN goes in Linda Polman Viking Penguin, 234pp, £12.99