Ideas

The New Tragic Age

The New Age of Tragedy

Great-power rivalry, resource scarcity and the crumbling of the liberal rules-based order.

By Robert D Kaplan, John Gray and Helen Thompson

Ideas

Our new financial masters

How asset managers work in the shadows – and shape all of our lives.

By Brett Christophers

The Weekend Essay

Dangerous minds

How Patrick Deneen and Yoram Hazony’s post-liberal theology went global.

By Suzanne Schneider and Yotam Hotam

The Weekend Essay

Do we really need Rawls?

Daniel Chandler’s much-hyped new book says that, in an age of polarisation, the American philosopher offers a blueprint for society.

By William Davies

Ideas

Why Tocqueville matters

Travel was a vital part of the French thinker’s political philosophy, but this has largely been forgotten in today’s secluded…

By Nick Burns

Culture

Who is criticism for?

Seth Rogen’s protest against bad reviews misunderstands the role of the critic in the fight against mediocrity.

By Lola Seaton

Books

The problem with Peter Frankopan’s theory of history

The Earth Transformed seeks to tell the story of climate change without confronting global capitalism. The result is a book…

By Geoff Mann

The Weekend Essay

Who is afraid of Martin Heidegger?

Why the most radioactive philosopher of the 20th century still speaks to us.

By Lyndsey Stonebridge

Ideas

The revolution will not be brought to you by ChatGPT

Robots never took your job, and neither will chatbots.

By Aaron Benanav

The Weekend Essay

The Washington consensus is dead

Europe, China and the US have all rejected free trade and globalisation. Protectionism is back.

By Angela Nagle

The Weekend Essay

The death of humanitarianism

How the West is paying the price for the unipolar moment.

By Lily Lynch

Middle East

The Iran problem

How the US is losing control of the Middle East.

By Helen Thompson

Ideas

John Gray and Peter Thiel: Life in a postmodern world

A conversation between the philosopher and the venture capitalist.

By John Gray

The Weekend Essay

The 2010s: a decade of revolutionaries without a revolution

How the left was made and unmade.

By William Davies

Ideas

From Bowling Alone to scrolling alone

Why loneliness is the defining political crisis in America.

By Lee Siegel

Ideas

The culture war claims Claudine Gay

How the Ivy League hearings on anti-Semitism reveal the wounded American elite.

By Lee Siegel

Ideas

The best New Statesman Ideas essays of 2023

Our pick of the finest writing from the past year.

By New Statesman

Culture

Why does no one write like Tom Wolfe any more?

In a polarised culture, appetite for the late writer’s brand of wry conservative satire has waned – and he is…

By Nick Burns

Ideas

Inside the Ministry of Fear

How our obsession with risk made us less safe.

By Suzanne Schneider

The Weekend Essay

America after neoliberalism

The traditional US coalitions of left and right face battles they were not set up to fight.

By Julius Krein

Media

The maverick of Fleet Street

Peregrine Worsthorne’s provocativeness, eccentricity and stylishness kept high Toryism alive in the 20th century.

By Geoffrey Wheatcroft

The Weekend Essay

Arno J Mayer’s 20th century

The historian helped transform the writing of history – and with it our understanding of the modern world.

By Enzo Traverso

Ideas

The Gessen affair and Germany’s ignorance about Jews

By criticising the journalist Masha Gessen, Germany misunderstands one of its greatest thinkers, Hannah Arendt.

By Susan Neiman

The Weekend Essay

Capitalism will kill us all

Fossil fuel companies are destroying the planet – not saving it.

By Adrienne Buller

Ideas

JGA Pocock: an ancient among the moderns

How the historian’s historian transformed the study of the past.

By Anton Jäger