13 December 2004
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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
The world's first multinational
NS Essay 1- Corporate greed, the ruination of traditional ways of life, share-price bubbles, western imperialism: all these modern complaints were made against the British East India Company in the 18th century. Nick Robins draws the lessons
Features
The ecstasy of God's dancers
Now more than ever the world needs a gentle, tolerant version of Islam. Sufism is exactly that, but it faces growing hostility from moneyed Saudi fundamentalists. William Dalrymple reports
A war president stands at the ready
In his end-of-year diary, our US editor Andrew Stephen notes a growing Bush personality cult, the plight of art lovers and a campaign against Kofi Annan
Beware a girl who calls herself Kimberly
New Labour should not have dropped old class prejudices against rich people with fancy names. Then Blunkett and Mandelson might have managed to stay out of trouble
Essay
The US is suffering a chronic deficit of legitimacy
NS Essay 2 - The international spread of democracy began in the 1970s but came to an end in the 1990s. Why? Because with the cold war over, America's moral mission is no longer so clear
Interview
NS Interview - Denis MacShane
The minister for Europe on how the euro (''that damn currency'') has become a fetish and how he told Chirac home truths. Denis MacShane interviewed
Regulars
Diary
Diary - Heather Mills McCartney
It struck me - after a girlfriend of mine was held at knifepoint while being stripped of her valuables - that a metal leg might come in handy at full force in the gonads of a mugger
John Pilger reminds us of Kosovo
Kosovo - the site of a genocide that never was - is now a violent "free market" in drugs and prostitution. What does this tell us about the likely outcome of the Iraq war?
Darcus Howe on a Trinidadian insurgent
I knew him as a child: now he is committed to armed revolutionary struggle
Michael Portillo - Rude awakening
Theatre 2004 - Attacks from critics, missed press nights, harrowing shows
Mark Kermode - Heroes and villains
Film 2004 - The boundaries of buck-chasing Hollywood have been redefined
Competition
Win vouchers to spend at any Tesco store
Arts & Culture
So, what would you burn?
When fire swept through an east London warehouse in May, it turned art into ash. Some mourned the losses, but others couldn't hide their glee . . .
Community spirit
Architecture - Churches fill up at Christmas, but that doesn't stop the rot. Simon Jenkins has a plan
Just imagine
Epic theatre - Rachel Halliburton finds children are able to sit still for six hours and beg for more
He's behind you!
Panto - Michael Coveney gets in festive mood with Britain's queen of comedy
A crib for a bed
Visual art - Trafalgar Square will be the scene of a heretical new nativity. Richard Cork explains
Television
Andrew Billen - The long goodbye
Television 2004 - From Barry to Carrie, it's been a year of farewells
Drink
Wine club - Roger Scruton on a wine for anti-hunting politicians
The red's foxy aftertaste makes it just right for anti-hunting politicians
The Fan
The fan - Hunter Davies writes a world-class column
If you throw yourself around, you can make yourself big - and world class!
Books
NS man of the year - Dan Brown
The author of the bestselling Da Vinci Code has tapped into our post-9/11 anxieties and fear of fundamentalism
Walk on the wild side. What is the point of children's literature? To introduce the young to concepts such as fear and unpredictability, or to damp them down at the day's end with wads of reassurance? Rachel Cusk regrets the excision of terror and violence from fairy tales
Fairy Tales
Hans Christian Andersen; translated by Tiina Nunnally Penguin Classics, 437pp, £20
ISBN 0713996412
The Annotated Brothers Grimm
Edited by Maria Tatar; with an introduction by A S Byatt W W Norton, 462pp, £17.95
Bottoms up! Wendy Holden is distressed by the lack of fizz in a study of her favourite tipple
Uncorked: the science of champagne
Gerard Liger-Belair Princeton University Press, 160pp, £12.95
ISBN 0691119198
Foul play
Even when badly written, the beautiful game's literary outpourings hold a sleazy fascination
Forever young
Christopher Bray on the greatest ever rock memoir, and a few of its cliche-ridden rivals
