17 July 2006
Become a subscriber and save £££
Save up to 50% on the New Statesman for twelve months and receive "Flat Earth News" from the award-winning investigative journalist Nick Davies FREE!
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
Oil: We're addicted
James Buchan has been writing about oil since the 1970s. Here, at a moment when steepling prices, political tension and encroaching climate change seem to point to the terminal crisis, he offers his prognosis for the commodity that made the modern world.
Features
Talking to the Taliban
Who are they? What do they want? All too often, we just label them "Islamists" and leave it at that. Kate Clark went to the fighters' heartland to find out
Parenting: Mamafesto
While "mommy wars" rage in the US, an agenda of political demands is emerging in western countries from mothers who want results, rather than the opportunity to moan. And Europe leads the way
Stuff of dreams
High oil prices have given Russia renewed power, frightening the west but bringing hope to ordinary Russians. Helen Womack reports
The Smith Institute Arts Lecture
Arts in the core script - writing ourselves in. By Peter Hewitt, Arts Council chief executive.
Regulars
New Statesman Leader
The toxic legacy of a nuclear future
The DTI has lost its nerve in the face of global geopolitics – energy security has become as critical as climate change
Diary
I've become a bean-eating liberal
There is growing concern that this president does not share our values. Oh, for The West Wing's Jed Bartlet in the White House
Politics
Young, gifted and silent
There's plenty of youthful talent in the cabinet, but none has yet shown any appetite for purging the old guard
World stage: Collective punishment, collective suffering
Lindsey Hilsum on crime and punishment in Israel
Media
The internet or something . . .
Bloggers didn't drive the Prescott story. They may have stirred it up a bit, but newspaper journalists broke it
Human Rights
Changing the rules*
Can you make jury service go away? And are you responsible for the bag of tricks on your doormat? Let the New Statesman’s legal expert solve your civil liberties dilemmas
History: flux or narrative?
Hegel's notion of progress is oddly relevant to today's politics, finds John Gray
This England
Each printed entry will receive a £5 book token
Entries on a POSTCARD, please, to This England, NS, address at www.newstatesman.com/contactus.htm
From our archive
The Third Afghan War
Taken from the New Statesman archive, 16 August 1919.
This conflict was over in just three months, concluding very much to Britain’s advantage. The Afghans, however, had issued a reminder that they were formidable adversaries. Sidebotham (1872-1940) was one of the leading military reporters of his day, much admired by Lloyd George, among others. This article, like many in the magazine’s early days, was unsigned, but the writer’s name appears in our contributors’ file. (It is worth remembering that the "Indian Government" he refers to was a distant limb of the imperial government in London.)
Selected by Brian Cathcart
Personal adviser No 3937
Set by Dipak Ghosh
Taking our cue from Marks & Spencer's sticker "Eat Well", which can be found on items of food, we asked for other helpful suggestions from manufacturers or supermarkets that could ease life for the cerebrally challenged
Arts & Culture
The art of understanding
With west and east on a collision course, can galleries succeed where governments have failed? Alice O'Keeffe on the V&A's attempt to bridge the cultural gap
Men behaving badly
Damien Hirst learned his bad-boy posturing from the Romantics, finds Sue Hubbard
Theatre
Lost in the moral maze
Two masterpieces pose brutal human dilemmas, but only one moves us
The Seagull
Lyttelton Theatre, London SE1
The Life of Galileo
Olivier Theatre, London SE1
Film
"Sufficientman" would be nearer the mark
There is nothing super about this long-awaited sequel
Superman Returns (12A) dir: Bryan Singer
Television
Don't panic: it's only a leaky reactor
The scaremongers are wrong - a little radiation may even be good for you
Horizon: nuclear nightmares BBC2
Travels
The happy holiday we outgrew
As Butlins celebrates its 70th birthday, William Cook pays tribute to a much-maligned British institution
Sport
And a big hand to . . .
What was all that about? Hunter Davies on the hopes and hairstyles at the World Cup
Drink
Wine: Peasants' revolt
Roger Scruton on the admirable fortitude of the wine-growers of southern France
Books
Monuments to the missing
The Memorial to the Missing of the Somme
Gavin Stamp Profile Books, 224pp, £14.99
ISBN 1904897606
Following the horrors of the Somme, architects set about commemorating the dead. Jonathan Meades salutes the timeless grandeur of Edwin Lutyens’s arch at Thiepval
In search of paradise
Magic Bus: on the hippie trail from Istanbul to India
Rory MacLean Viking, 304pp, £16.99
ISBN 0670914843
The age of innocence
The Story of Childhood: growing up in modern Britain
Libby Brooks Bloomsbury, 352pp, £8.99
ISBN 0747583439
Carnal knowledge
Heat: an amateur's adventures as kitchen slave, line cook, pasta-maker and apprentice to a butcher in Tuscany
Bill Buford Jonathan Cape, 318pp, £17.99
ISBN 1400041201
Quick on the draw
Kalooki Nights
Howard Jacobson Jonathan Cape, 472pp, £17.99
ISBN 0224078658
The rush to war
Whiteman
Tony D'Souza Portobello Books, 288pp, £12.99
ISBN 1846270499
Wheels of fire
Angels of Death: inside the bikers' global crime empire
William Marsden and Julian Sher Hodder & Stoughton, 464pp, £17.99
ISBN 0340898305
Mystery man
So He Takes the Dog
Jonathan Buckley Fourth Estate, 327pp, £10.99
ISBN 0007228309
Arctic adventure
One Hundred Siberian Postcards
Richard Wirick Telegram, 212pp, £9.99
ISBN 1846590159
Mistress of arts
Passionate Minds: the great Enlightenment love affair
David Bodanis Little, Brown, 336pp, £17.99
ISBN 0316730874
Observations
Letters to the Editor
New Statesman readers give their views - see what they said and find out how to contribute yourself by going to our letters pages


