FROM THE MAGAZINE

May 2022

Spectator Editorial

In search of a Biden doctrine

His self-importance and lack of strategic thinking are not a recipe for a safer world

By Spectator Editorial

From the Magazine

Leaving Kyiv

The Mariupol theater bombing was a mere preamble to what the world saw

By Vladislav Davidzon

From the Magazine

International

Joe Biden’s new world disorder

His weakness has led to the fracturing of the American-led global system

By Mary Kissel

From the Magazine

Russia

Why Putin won’t save NATO

The West’s best hope is to rediscover a self-affirming anti-imperialism on the nationalist right

By Daniel McCarthy

From the Magazine

Russia

Springtime for Cold War nostalgics

Weariness with, and wariness of, the Cold War was very real and ought to give us pause

By Matt Purple

From the Magazine

China

What Ukraine means for Asia

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has scrambled Asia’s geopolitics

By Michael Auslin

From the Magazine

International

How to avoid World War Three

History can help presidents think about how to confront new challenges

By Tevi Troy

From the Magazine

Religion

Of Mahler and mandates

Why is the Kennedy Center discriminating against a Catholic trumpet player?

By Billy McMorris

From the Magazine

Culture

I am woman. Watch me push

In an effort to make everything inclusive, we are erasing women

By Bridget Phetasy

From the Magazine

Education

Children’s lives depend on parents’ rights

Trans ideologues want to hide your child’s problems from you

By Madeleine Kearns

From the Magazine

Education

Does Putin pass Aristotle’s tyrant test?

Seeing the turannos as a deviant type of king, Aristotle tested the distinction under four headings

By Peter Jones

From the Magazine

Business

Cheugy, Gu and you

Luxury retail is as cheugy as any other kind

By Christopher Caldwell

From the Magazine

Education

Stop reading

Literacy is overrated

By Peter W. Wood

From the Magazine

Culture

Dan Savage has fallen out of love with the left

Savage is no cookie-cutter lefty, for all his haranguing in favour of baroque sexual lifestyles

By Zoe Strimpel

From the Magazine

Culture

Joining the SoulCycle cult

Amid all of life’s mundanity, who doesn’t want to be an athlete?

By Josie Cox

From the Magazine

Politics

Revenge of the populists

How conservatism’s anti-elitists defeated the establishment

By Matthew Continetti

From the Magazine

Internet

Why we need robust free speech laws

Recent clampdowns in Russia and China show just how foolish the prevailing US mood is

By Jesse Singal

From the Magazine

Culture

Ain’t that good news

Rather than preparing to live out the rest of this century in misery, I’m now giddily optimistic

By Daniella Greenbaum Davis

From the Magazine

Economics

How the boomers robbed the young of all hope

Younger generations inherit a world in which the middle ranks are struggling almost everywhere

By Joel Kotkin

From the Magazine

Books + Arts

Books

Et in Arcadia ego

Interwar Oxford was less a world of dreaming spires and more one of constipated poets

By Daisy Dunn

From the Magazine

Book Review

The imperfect spy

A Spy in Plain Sight: The Inside Story of the FBI and Robert Hanssen, America’s Most Damaging Russian Spy by Lis Wiehl reviewed

By Andrew Stuttaford

From the Magazine

Book Review

Faeries and queens

Flint and Mirror by John Crowley reviewed

By Philip Womack

From the Magazine

Book Review

Dire straits

Straits: Beyond the Myth of Magellan by Felipe Fernández-Armesto reviewed

By Horatio Clare

From the Magazine

Book Review

Paradais City

Paradais by Fernanda Melchor reviewed

By Alex Perez

From the Magazine

Book Review

You had to be there

Everybody Thought We Were Crazy by Mark Rozzo reviewed

By Gavin Smith

From the Magazine

Books

Standing with J.K. Rowling

A certain sector of the Harry Potter fandom has decided that the author is the devil incarnate

By Alexander Larman

From the Magazine

Exhibitions

Blues for Pablo

An exhibition of early Picasso has landed at the Phillips Collection in Washington

By Mario Naves

From the Magazine

Exhibitions

Jewel aid

Cartier’s sleek modernity finds its roots in Islamic art history

By Jane Coombs

From the Magazine

Music

Charles Mingus at 100

He isn’t for the faint of heart, but it’s worth confronting his life’s work

By Andrew L. Shea

From the Magazine

Theater

Midcult madness

The Music Man and Plaza Suite reviewed

By Robert S. Erickson

From the Magazine

Television

Around and around the world

Masterpiece has brought Around the World in 80 Days to the small screen

By Timothy Jacobson

From the Magazine

Film

Beach for America

Spring Breakers revisited

By Alex Perez

From the Magazine

Life

High Life

The books that made me who I am

In my teens everything I read in fiction was new and believable

By Taki

From the Magazine

Low Life

The joy of wigs

Everyone – from Thomas Hardy to Vladimir Putin – should try one

By Jeremy Clarke

From the Magazine

London Life

I’m tired of being a good friend

Be warned: friendship is the first casualty of truth

By Cosmo Landesman

From the Magazine

American Life

Six degrees of Batavia

I guess I’m just two degrees removed from Lime Jell-O fruit salad

By Bill Kauffman

From the Magazine

Prejudices

The march of the ‘experts’

Failing to recognize the difference between learning and practical experience

By Chilton Williamson, Jr.

From the Magazine

Place

Place

The island that time forgot

A remote Chesapeake outpost is turning to soup

By Josh Glancy

From the Magazine

Place

Lincoln’s hideaway

What solace Lincoln did find often came during stays in what today is known as President Lincoln’s Cottage

By George Spencer

From the Magazine

Food and Drink

Food

The city that never eats

London’s restaurant scene has bounced back from Covid. New York’s is struggling

By Kate Andrews

From the Magazine

Food

The assorted joys of nasturtiums

By the middle of June, nasturtiums are finished here in central California. But there are many places where they are just beginning to bloom

By Calla Jones Corner

From the Magazine

Food

In praise of the country store

Mosley’s hails from a past age but prospers fine in this one

By Timothy Jacobson

From the Magazine

Drink

Bargain Brazilian wines

Brazil’s light, fruity and approachable wines are likely to find a place in the American market

By Roger Kimball

From the Magazine

And Finally

And Finally

Tales from the ER

It turns out, you only know a place as well as you know its emergencies

By Mary Kate Skehan

From the Magazine