1776 has a claim to being the single most important year in the history of the English-speaking peoples. America declared her independence, James Watt sold his first steam engine and Adam Smith invented modern economics. Edward Gibbon might also win ‘highly commended’ for publishing the ‘Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’ in the same year. […]
Last Friday morning, there was a palpable sense that Britain was having a nervous breakdown. The abominable Greens had stormed to victory in the Gorton and Denton by-election; in Parliament Square, the statue of Winston Churchill had been defaced with graffiti branding the Greatest Briton a ‘Zionist war criminal’ and calling for the globalisation of […]
Three and a half years ago, the British Monarchy appeared serene in its stability. After a lifetime of grandeur and service, a great reign had ended. In response, the national mood appeared to be one of solemnity and gratitude. Although there were complaints from fringe groups, they appeared to be speaking for no one except […]
Sven Beckert, a Harvard professor, has written a very long history of capitalism. As its subtitle suggests, ‘Capitalism: A Global History’ covers all of the inhabited world and spans a millennium, starting with 12th-century merchants trading through the port city of Aden. The enterprise is of more than purely historical interest. As Beckert points out, […]
It is impossible to pinpoint an exact place or moment when capitalism began. Capitalism is a process, not a discrete historical event with a beginning and an end, and it did not drop fully formed into a particular location. Even today, no society is organised along fully capitalist lines, and some have argued that a […]
The decline of Christianity is nothing new. Some 150 years ago, Matthew Arnold, in his poem ‘Dover Beach’, mourned the ‘melancholy, long, withdrawing roar’ of the ‘Sea of Faith’. And that was in the high noon of Victorian England. Today, he would have far more to be concerned about. The last 20 years have witnessed […]
Tracing the dynamics of progress in time and space reveals a fundamental tension running through the historical record: technologies that strengthen bureaucratic control can temporarily spur development but later hinder new discoveries and sow the seeds for stagnation. Early dynastic China leveraged technology to achieve its goals, such as tax collection, power consolidation and warfare. […]
The British economy is not in a happy state. Many fear that stagnant economic growth and enormous long-term liabilities, especially in the context of an ageing population, not to mention our yawning deficit, make our public finances unsustainable. Bond markets are getting nervous: perhaps a debt crisis and painful correction await. Few believe that Rachel […]
I’m a former RAF pilot. I’ve written books and made films about Nelson, Churchill and the Battle of Britain. I’m reliably on the ‘Oh come off it!’ side when empire-bashing academics bang on about reparations for slavery or present my country as the great villain of global history. And yet my recently published book, ‘1945: […]
There is much discussion right now about the dysfunctionality of UK politics. This goes beyond complaints about the policy incoherence or ineffectuality of any particular government, whether that be the current one or its Tory and Coalition predecessors. Rather, there is a growing feeling that the political system itself, the whole process of politics, no […]
I first heard the names Adam Smith and John Maynard Keynes when I was a high-school sophomore. My teacher announced, as if it were a fact as firm as any law of thermodynamics, that the Great Depression was caused by laissez-faire policies advocated by Smith, and that salvation came from the more scientifically sound ideas […]
It is time to choose your favourite cliché. Grasp the nettle, bite the bullet. Whichever it is, Kemi Badenoch has done it. For years, many eminent Tories have been aware that the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and its legal penumbra are causing problems here. But there were determined efforts at evasion. Just kick […]
Far from bringing any sense of national cohesion, St George’s Day this year seems to have set politicians and commentators at loggerheads more than ever. It is not just the row that followed the Church moving the saint’s day this year to the following week because of its clash with Easter celebrations. It is also […]
It’s a familiar story: pro-migration propagandists, fears of manpower shortages, a humanitarian crisis in Europe, an ambitious but nebulous foreign policy and a government riven by factionalism – all combining to create the perfect conditions for an unprecedented migrant inflow and a swift public backlash. Stand aside, Boris – I am of course referring to […]
It’s fifty years since Margaret Thatcher became leader of the Conservatives. Over the decade and a half in which she led the party, Thatcher would remake conservatism, the state and the economy in her own image. Yet she may never have become leader, and the word ‘Thatcherism’ may never have crossed anybody’s lips, had it […]
We have been here before, when matters seemed, if anything, even worse. I was reminded of this by a work of light fiction, perfect for holiday reading, by Jim Naughtie, called ‘Paris Spring’, set in the spring of 1968. Back then, it was some time since there had been a French revolution, so it might […]
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