The Spectator

31 May 2008

Features:

• The precarious peace in Helmand Fraser Nelson Can the West prevent a horrific new conflict in Afghanistan?
• Obama and McCain offer a real choice Irwin Stelzer The presidential race will be a proper Right v. Left contest
• Apologies are the work of the Devil Anna Blundy Say ing ‘sorry’ is mostly wicked and usually irrelevant
• De Gaulle understood the nation-state Robin Harris The realist genius knew that in geopolitics only nations matter
• Why try to c riminalise all motorists? Bryan Forbes The persecution of drivers is a metaphor for England’s decline
• How to win the Eurovision Song Contest Rod Liddle Start with a moronic 4/4 disco beat
• Anthony Sattin: The Eye of the Leopard; The Miracle at Speedy Motors, by Alexander McCall Smith
• The cau ses of the food crisis Julian Morris
• Cyber-database proposals Edie G. Lush
• City life: Minsk Neil Barnett
• Magn us Lin klater: The Invention of Scotland, by Hugh Trevor Roper, edited by Jeremy J. Carter
• Ian Sansom: Armageddon in Retrospect, by Kurt Vonnegut
• Leo McKin stry: A Good War, by Patrick Bishop
• Anth on y Daniels: Dinner with Mu gabe, b y Heidi Holla nd
• Robert Stewart: A History of Political Trials from Charles I to Saddam Hussein, by John Laughland
• William Brett: The Informers, by Juan Gabriel Vasquez
• Kit Wright: ‘Cold Harbor’
• Philip Ziegler: London Lights, by James Hamilto n; The Phoenix, by Leo Hollis
• Mirabel Cecil: Bloomsbury Ballerina, by Judith Mackrell
• H onor Clerk: The Sorrows of an American, by Siri Hustvedt
• Judith Flanders: The Cellist of Sarajevo, by Stev en Ga lloway
• James Forsyth: The Return of History and the End of Dreams, by Robert Kagan