ISSUE 141 DECEMBER 2007

Contributors to this issue

PHILIP BALL ’s novel The Sun and Moon Corrupted is forthcoming from Portobello

TOM CHATFIELD is assistant editor of Prospect

MARK COUSINS is the author of The Story of Film (Pavilion Books)

ROB GIFFORD is the London bureau chief for National Public Radio

DAVID GOLDBLATT is a writer, broadcaster and teacher

ALASDAIR GRAY ’s latest novel is Old Men in Love (Bloomsbury)

AC GRAYLING ’s latest book is Towards the Light (Bloomsbury)

DAVID HERMAN is a writer and television producer

CHRISTOPHER HIRD is joint managing director of Fulcrum Productions

LEO HORNAK is a microfinance consultant

RICHARD JENKYNS is a fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford University

ANATOLE KALETSKY is a Times columnist

NIBRAS KAZIMI is a visiting fellow at the Hudson Institute, Washington DC

IAN KEARNS is deputy director of the Institute for Public Policy Research

MARTIN KETTLE is a Guardian columnist

TIM KING is a writer living in France

CHARLOTTE LESLIE is the editor of the Bow Group magazine Crossbow

BEN LEWIS presents BBC4’s Art Safari

MATTHEW LOCKWOOD is a senior research fellow in climate change at IPPR

JAMES LOVELOCK is the author of The Revenge of Gaia (Penguin)

ROWAN MOORE is an architecture critic

ANDREW MORAVCSIK is a professor at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School

COLIN MURPHY is a journalist living in Dublin

JONATHAN RÉÉE holds a visiting position at Roehampton University

NICOLAS ROTHWELL is a special correspondent for the Australian

KAMILA SHAMSIE ’s most recent novel is Broken Verses (Bloomsbury)

ROBERT SKIDELSKY is professor of political economy, Warwick University

WILLIAM SKIDELSKY is deputy editor of Prospect

IAN STEWART is author of Why Beauty Is Truth: The History of Symmetry (Basic)

ROBERT WADE is a professor of political economy at the LSE

contents

Coverstory 34Taking sport seriously Sport has never been more important,but its meaning and appeal are still not taken seriously,at least in Britain.It is time for sport to enjoy the same cultural weight as the performing arts,says David Goldblatt,and to be judged by the normal standards of public life.

Opinions

12New thinking on nukes A nuclear weapons-free world is possible. Shouldn’t Gordon Brown push for it? IAN KEARNS

13The bias against boys The feminisation of society is partly to blame for boys doing badly at school. CHARLOTTE LESLIE

14Marxist populism Perry Anderson has embraced Eurosceptic populism. ANDREW MORAVCSIK

15The genre divide The gulf between genre and literary fiction remains wide. TOM CHATFIELD

16Pakistan’s military tycoons The Pakistani military clings to power partly to safeguard its economic empire. KAMILA SHAMSIE

Debate

20Is global finance out of control? Have global deregulation and the ascendancy of finance been good or bad for the world economy? ROBERT WADE VSANATOLE KALETSKY

Special report

CITIES AND CLIMATE CHANGE

27Cooler cities Many cities have far more ambitious environmental aims than do national governments. But how are these aims to be realised? MATTHEW LOCKWOOD

Interview

32Yvette Cooper At the start of the most ambitious housebuilding programme for a generation, housing minister Yvette Cooper talks to Prospect . ROWAN MOORE & MATTHEW LOCKWOOD

Essays

40Aboriginal surprise In June, the Australian government tore up 30 years of social policy towards Aborigines in the Northern Territory. NICOLAS ROTHWELL

44Do we need a literary canon? We need a common culture, but it is wrong to think it should be based on a canon. Shared references must evolve more organically. RICHARD JENKYNS

Witness

50The Silicon Valley of China The inland city of Hefei is almost unknown outside China, but it aspires to be the country’s hi-tech centre by 2020. ROB GIFFORD

2 Prospect DECEMBER2007 Portrait

54Joseph Schumpeter The theorist of “creative destruction”was one of the greatest economists of the 20th century . ROBERT SKIDELSKY

My story

58Making it in Tollywood I went to India to sort out rural poverty. I ended up making it to the final of south India’s Pop Idol. LEO HORNAK

Columns

10These islands The Africans of Parnell Street. COLIN MURPHY

18Washington watch Hillary’s Iran problem. TUMBLER

48France profonde Michel Onfray and root vegetables. TIM KING

57Rivers of Babylon The Shia mobile phone. NIBRAS KAZIMI

61Lab report Mining the moon. PHILIP BALL

80Confessions My history of violence. WILLIAM SKIDELSKY

Regulars

4Letters 6News & curiosities 8Grayling’s question AC GRAYLING 8Enigmas & puzzles IAN STEWART 73Classifieds 78The generalist 79The list

Forthcoming

LINDA MELVERN investigates the real cause of the Rwandan genocide

ANDREW BISWELL on the art of biography in the digital age

Prospect’ s round-up of the most overrated and underrated cultural events of the year The next issue of Prospect will be published on 20th December

www.prospect-magazine.co.uk

online arts & books

Prospect online

Fiction

Archives Every article from every issue of Prospect .

62The third Mr Glasgow Drunk, spurned and locked out of his flat, Mr MacBleaney consoles himself by remembering former glories. ALASDAIR GRAY

Reviews

66The advanced liberal John Stuart Mill valued liberty less for its own sake than for its contribution to human advancement. JONATHAN RÉÉE

68Ground truths Oliver Morton’s book on earth science is most timely. JAMES LOVELOCK

69Broadcasting the arts John Wyver’s new book charts the rise and fall of arts broadcasting. DAVID HERMAN

Arts columns

65Private view If you can’t beat photographers, join them. BEN LEWIS

71Widescreen David Cronenberg comes to London.

MARK COUSINS

72Performance notes December is Messiah month. MARTIN KETTLE

77Smallscreen My plan B for Channel 4.

CHRISTOPHER HIRD

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Web exclusives

LUCY WADHAM on the decline of private life in France

JONATHON PORRITT and others reply to Dick Taverne on GM food

BEN RAWLENCE on the role of cobalt in DR Congo

Online archive

Revisit our past coverage of some of the topics covered in this issue.

Sport

GEOFFREY WHEATCROFT mourns the death of English cricket

JASON COWLEY on footballers’ lives

WILL HUTTON warms to golf

EDWARD SMITH finds cricketers in the ghettos of Los Angeles

Climate change

PHILIP BALL explains the complexities of climate NIGEL LAWSON argues against Kyoto

MATTHEW LOCKWOOD provides a rough guide to carbon trading

ADAIR TURNER on the economics of cutting emissions

China

WILL HUTTON & MEGHNAD DESAI debate whether the future really belongs to China or not

YIYUN LI remembers her time in the Chinese army

MICHAEL HOLROYD returns to find the country more relaxed than before

MARK KITTO on how the Chinese government nicked his magazines

Prospect DECEMBER2007 3