In the era of Jane Austen only the eldest sons could inherit wealth, and how a single man not in possession of good fortune, will just have to roll up his sleeves and work for his living. Rory Muir reveals the customs of English aristocrats and their bourgeois imitators was to leave all their wealth…
Afghan born Pakistani poetess and writer Fatima Bhutto who studied at Columbia University writes about vast cultural movement emerging from beyond the Western world, displaying truly global in its range and allure, challenging Hollywood, McDonalds and blue jeans. K-Pop from Korea provide universal satisfaction – not merely as entertainment but on an emotional level too.…
Five years ago Jacques Testard visited Frankfurt Book Fair and acquired the English-language rights for a book by a Ukrainian-born author shunned by mainstream publishers. Little did he know, a year later that £3, 500 investment, the biggest advance paid by his newly formed Fitzcarraldo Publishing House – paid off handsomely when Svetlana Alexievich won…
Gretchen McCulloch, a Canadian linguist, making sense of the ways we communicate online “ how internet is making us more nuanced and inventive writers”, in her latest book she writes “ because of internet, through a revolutionary period in linguistic history, where writing quickly, within character limits and deploying ever-changing internet slang, is enriching…
The Guardian newspaper investigative journalist Amelia Gentleman, received an email from a charity with a message describing how the UK government was trying to deport a 61-year-old grandmother who had arrived from Jamaica aged 10, but had no documents to prove that she had entered Britain legally. Months of investigation revealed that this was not…
A Tunisian friend of Justin Marozzi told him, “I’m embarrassed to be an Arab these days. Everywhere you look there’s chaos, fighting, bloodshed, dictatorship, corruption, injustice, unemployment. The only thing we’re leading the world in is terrorism”. For centuries the caliphate was both ascendant on the battlefield and triumphant in the battle of ideas, its…
MIT’s Daren Acemoglu and Chicago’s James Robinson authors of highly influential Why Nations Fail, provide an in-depth analysis of how to get there, It is hard, and liberty originates from a delicate balance of power between state and society. Liberty is hardly the natural order of things as in most places and at most times,…
As the Democracy is on the defensive, civil freedoms and the role of law are being eroded in many countries, Parliament, free elections, political pluralism and independent media are under assault form strongmen rulers and illiberal populists, Dutch born Hong Kong based historian, Dikotter throw light into the era of modern tyrannies, much of the…
The Labour Party under the leadership of Michael Foot with the “longest suicide note in history” Labour’s 1983 election manifesto was deeply unpopular and it felt like a turning point in British politics. Margaret Thatcher had came power in 1979 with a daring plan to reverse Britain’s decline into shabbiness and chaos, as factories closed…
A Beginner’s guide to Japan is scheduled to publish as the country bids for the world’s attention first with the Rugby World Cup and then with the Tokyo Olympics next summer. The underlying surge in foreign tourists over the past six years Japan and a window for Japan hands – old and new- how everything…