Contents

Cover story

32 After capitalism What will come after the economic crisis? geoff mulgan

opinions

18 All together now the G20’s hour. gerald holtham 19 Rebels without a cause let’s embrace the database state. david goodhart 20 Nasty, brutish and long Why civil wars drag on. monica toft 21 License to kill We need to unglamourise al Qaeda. jamie bartlett � michael king 22 A play on paedophilia a writing challenge. stephen brown 23 Left said Fred engels saw the crunch coming. tristram hunt 24 More coups, please poor nations are trapped—let bad leaders fall. paul collier

Features

28 Kureishi on the Rushdie afair Hanif Kureishi on the impact of the fatwa. kenan malik 40 Travels with the Mango King looking for the soul of pakistan in rural sindh. aatish taseer 46 Goodbye, homo economicus economists bear a lot of blame for the crisis. anatole kaletsky 50 They run your school, your mum and dad is it wise to allow parents to set up their own schools? james crabtree � katharine quarmby

56 Europe’s last dictatorship Belarus’s struggles. sam knight 58 No, he can’t the wheels are coming of obama’s revolution already. bartle bull

sCienCe & teChnology

66 It’s good to share Drug companies could make money by sharing trade secrets. jim giles 67 A magic age? Who’s marketing to your kids—and how? ed mayo � agnes nairn 68 Clickstream journalism the internet may be warping journalistic values. andrew currah 69 No laughing matter Donating your medical history can seem thankless. elizabeth pisani

Columns

10 Political notes localism is tricky. richard reeves 17 The life & opinions of Julian Gough Julie Myerson’s meme. 26 Washington watch congress resists obama. renegade 27 Brussels diary Barroso’s worried. manneken pis 31 Crisis watch We need new banks. jonathan ford 63 China café shanghai surprise. mark kitto 64 Sporting life regulating soccer. david goldblatt 70 Lab report Nasa’s new telescope. philip ball 88 Letter from Riga latvian healthcare. tom chatfield 96 Dear Wilhemina Prospect’s new agony aunt.

arts & books

73 Beckett begins again is samuel Beckett’s work being ossified by reverence? colin murphy 74 Can evolution explain aesthetics? a new book argues our appreciation of art is innate. nigel warburton 76 Cultural notebook the significance of Street Fighter. sam leith 77 The writer that wasn’t there Graham swift’s peculiar absences. jonathan derbyshire 78 A beautiful shame Jason cowley charts the renaissance of football. dominic sandbrook 79 Smallscreen Iran and the west. peter bazalgette 80 Performance notes Bernard Haitink. martin kettle 81 The French disease French culture is no longer a force majeure. catherine fieschi 82 Picking Jane’s brains the latest bizarre developments in the cult of austen. claire harman 83 Widescreen Hong Kong cinema. mark cousins

FiCtion

84 Magic Doing time. carlo gebler

regulars

6 Letters 8 Prospect recommends 12 Diary 93 Enigmas & puzzles 94 The generalist 95 The Prospect list

next issue published 30th april 2009

china’s wild west parag khanna the sarkozy phenomenon sophie pedder the narrowing atlantic peter baldwin

april 2009 · prospect · 5