IN THIS ISSUE

FEATURES

8BLIND FAITH Deluded and deranged? Laurie Taylor tries to understand believers

12FREE FROM CROOKED THINGS Misogynist and irrational it may be,but it would be wrong to overlook Buddhism’s brave resistance,argues Karen Connelly

18CHOICE BUSTERS The battle against women’s rights to choose is going global,finds Solana Larsen

28CHANGE,CHANGE,CHANGE HRT or reclaiming your wrinkles? Hot flushes or “power surges”? Sally Feldman hits the menopausal maelstrom

32BEING RIGHT Nick Cohen confronts the liberals in denial

COVER STORY

14 HOLY RELICS What are the bishops doing in the Lords? asks Jake Bromberg

24GURUS OF ENDLESS WAR The neocons are not finished yet,warns Shadia Drury

CONTRIBUTORS

Karen Connelly,who writes about Buddhist radicalism on page 12,is a Canadian author. Her latest novel,The Lizard Cage,a harrowing story of human resilience set in Burma’s notorious prison system,has been shortlisted for the Orange New Writers Prize

Political columnistNick Cohen caused a furore when he published What’s Left?, an excoriating attack on what he sees as liberal hypocrisy. He answers his critics on page 32

Shadia Drury is a political philosopher at the University of Regina,Saskatchewan. She has been tracking the influence of philosopher Leo Strauss on the neoconservatives since the 1990s. Though widely reviled by “Straussians”,even they agree that her book The Political Ideas of Leo Struassis the best explication of Strauss’s Machivellian vision of society

Solana Larsen is a Danish-Puerto Rican journalist based in New York City. She researched her story on the rebranding of the abortion issue (page 18) while blogging the UN Commission on the Status of Women for the political website openDemocracy.net

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