Might it be possible to design some form of confederacy preserving Israeli and Palestinian nationhood while granting mutual access to the same territory? I look at the ‘parallel states solution’ in light of the White House’s decision to unilaterally recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Jeremy Corbyn’s serene countenance during the election campaign drew frequent parallels with that of a Buddhist monk, Corbyn himself at one point referring to his efforts to attune himself to a Zen mindframe. But when watching Corbyn deliver his speech at Glastonbury last week, it occurred to me that a comparison with another spiritual archetype might be more appropriate.
Mark Lilla’s collection of essays The Shipwrecked Mind asserts a classic liberal scepticism against both Golden Age and Futurist utopias.
In which I argue Blue Labour is part right about social democracy: social democracy is a form of communitarianism, but it is a communitarianism oriented to the future, not the past.
Mark Fisher’s latest – and tragically – final book The Weird and the Eerie explores encounters with the outside and the unknown in 20th and 21st century film, music and literature.
Why should Bowie’s music, so often abstract, glacial, detached, obscure and mockingly ironic, hold such a powerful emotional appeal for so many?
Here are 10 books I particularly appreciated this year – though not necessarily published in 2016 – listed in alphabetical order.