The Intellectual of The Masses
John Carey sticks up for 'ordinary life' in his memoir The Unexpected Professor
Politics, Ideas and the Arts
Very Young Ladies and the Tramp
Peter Ackroyd's new biography shows that Charlie Chaplin was an incorrigible womaniser but a brilliant innovator
Antediluvian Ark
An extraordinary cuneiform tablet has provided a mine of information about pre-biblical flood legends
Final Cut of a Joyous Geriatric
Matisse’s cut-outs are free from the brooding and nostalgia that haunt the late works of so many artists
The Russians Are Coming
'Like everyone else in Kiev my friend has been having nightmares'
As America Retreats, the World Goes to Hell
The Ukraine crisis has revealed the incoherence of the Obama doctrine. Until the US reasserts itself, liberal democracy is in danger
A Borderland on the Edge
The West still sees Ukraine through Russia's eyes
Europe Cannot Do Without Putin’s Gas
It will be another decade before the Continent can substitute the product of American fracking for Russian energy piped via Ukraine
Father of Russia’s Conservatism
Putin's ideology can be traced back to Sergey Uvarov
Scottish Nationalism is Built on a Big Lie
Alex Salmond’s blend of flag-waving and leftist economics is all too similar to the ideologies that ravaged 20th-century Europe
The Tragic Destiny of Basil Blackwood
Unpublished documents reveal how the brilliant 4th Marquess of Dufferin and Ava met his end on a wartime mission in Burma
Objectively Illuminating
A new collection of Bernard Williams’s essays and reviews serves as a reminder of the academic’s restless intelligence