08 August 2005
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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
Islam: the tide of change
The Muslim world is not the medieval monolith we in the west often imagine. Ziauddin Sardar toured some of its most populous and important countries, meeting senior leaders and thinkers, and he returned hopeful
Features
Gwot is history. Now for Save
After the Global War On Terror comes the Struggle Against Violent Extremism. Robert Fox explains
The usual suspect
Two weeks ago in these pages, John Pilger argued that the London bombings were the inevitable consequence of the Iraq invasion. Tom Harris believes he is missing the point
We did it to the Irish first
Heavy-handed anti-terror tactics have a history of making things worse
Autism: the mercury trail
Powerful evidence points to a preservative in vaccines as the likely culprit
The birth of Blameron
A mere boy who went to Eton is standing for the leadership of his party on a ticket of "Tory modernism". Nick Cohen can't spot the difference from Tony Blair's old flannel
Regulars
The Politics Column
Politics - John O'Farrell finds the Irish in Blair
When Blair drew a distinction recently between the IRA and al-Qaeda, he was able to do so because he understands both Catholicism and the uses of violence. By John O'Farrell
John Pilger hails the Brigaders
The legacy of the International Brigades helps us understand not only the nature of fascism, but that even those who are not fascists have similar goals
Darcus Howe sees a generation adrift
We have stripped our young people of the means to fight the barbarism engulfing them
Competition
Win vouchers to spend at any Tesco store
Culture
Making waves
Curators and prize committees love him. Yet Antony Gormley's critics accuse him of arrogance and complacency. Now he has dotted Crosby Beach with life-size casts of his own body. Richard Cork on the inventiveness and surprising humour of Britain's most ambitious sculptor
Labour of love
Art in Russia - During the siege of Leningrad, staff at the Hermitage went to remarkable lengths to save the museum's treasures, finds Sebastian Harcombe
Theatre
Michael Portillo - Double vision
Theatre - Two sets of twins and endless puns create charming chaos, writes Michael Portillo The Comedy of Errors Royal Shakespeare Theatre Stratford-upon-Avon
Film
Miranda Sawyer - Eternal torment
Film - An ultra-violent slasher flick that feels as if it will never end. By Miranda Sawyer The Devil's Rejects (18)
Television
Andrew Billen - Bananas republic
Television - A furry-hooded joker goes in for a spot of nation-building. By Andrew Billen How to Start Your Own Country (BBC2)
Books
Dark star of the Enlightenment . How did an African slave surmount 18th-century attitudes to become a top military commander and intimate of Peter the Great? Maggie Gee charts an extraordinary life
Gannibal: the Moor of Petersburg Hugh Barnes Profile, 300pp, £16.99 ISBN 1861973659
Miss Perfect
Take a Girl Like Me Diana Melly Chatto & Windus, 280pp, £14.99 ISBN 0701179066
Total recall
Almost a Childhood: growing up among the Nazis Hans-Georg Behr; translated by Anthea Bell Granta Books, 324pp, £14.99 ISBN 1862077819
Treasure hunt
Freakonomics: a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner Allen Lane, the Penguin Press, 242pp, £20 ISBN 0713998067
Fiction - Nice business
We're In Trouble Christopher Coake Viking, 306pp, £10.99 ISBN 0670915432
Commentary
Bombing trains is nothing new - it is what 19th-century anarchists did. Moreover, their deeds were immortalised in fiction. Tom Armitage on the forgotten genre of the "dynamite romance"
