Special report

62Explaining the financial crisis The credit crunch was an accident waiting to happen, thanks to a long period of benign market conditions which encouraged riskier behaviour by financiers. But how did problems in the US mortgage market spread so far? CHARLES GOODHART

Columns

12China café é My Chinese firewood crimes. MARK KITTO

21Washington watch Bring on the super-delegates. TUMBLER

37Sporting life The problem with the Paralympics. GEOFFREY WHEATCROFT

53These islands The most English place in England. TERENCE KEALEY

57Lab report Where did we get syphilis from? PHILIP BALL

67Brussels diary Is Gordon starting to get Europe? MANNEKEN PIS

88Confessions I’m a liberal and a Daily Mail reader. DON BERRY

Regulars

6Letters 8News & curiosities 10Grayling’s question AC GRAYLING 10Enigmas & puzzles IAN STEWART 86The generalist 87The list

Forthcoming

JG BALLARD & JOHN GRAY in conversation

ROBERT REICH on the US election

ADAM PHILLIPS asks if happiness can be taught

The next issue of Prospect will be published on 28th February

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Fiction

Archives Every article from every issue of Prospect .

68The half-baked entrepreneur Dear Premier Wen, allow me—a servant, philosopher and successful businessman —to offer you the truth about Bangalore, free of charge. ARAVIND ADIGA

Reviews

74A desperate fascination Martin Amis has written obsessively about 9/11, but his political imagination looks increasingly barren. TOM CHATFIELD

76Re-readings Bernhard Schlink’s new novel covers many of the same themes as his last, the controversial The Reader . PHILIP OLTERMANN

77Dropping the pilot The broadcasting media no longer provides society with moral guidance—and people miss it. JOHN LLOYD

78BHL is back Bernard-Henri Léévy’s new book is typically immodest, yet brilliantly argued. CATHERINE FIESCHI

Arts columns

72Widescreen Wim Wenders and me. MARK COUSINS

80Private view The Russian paintings affair. BEN LEWIS

81Performance notes Barenboim and Beethoven. MARTIN KETTLE

85Smallscreen My television company went belly-up.

CHRISTOPHER HIRD

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Web exclusives

Coverage of the expected Kosovo declaration of independence

JONATHAN HILL on how football can create a European public space

AYESHA SIDDIQA on Pakistan’s nuclear weapons

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

America

ERIC KAUFMANN assesses the impact of Hispanic immigration

MICHAE LIND on the Texas nexus

ANATOL LIEVEN worries about American nationalism

ALAN WOLFE on the evangelicals

Oil

DANIEL LITVIN on the problems with the oil in Iraq

JEREMY LEGGETT & DAVID JENKINS debate when the oil will run out

PAUL SAMPSON on pipeline politics

British identity

LINDA COLLEY,DAVID LAMMY,BILLY BRAGG

& OTHERS on national identity

ERIC HOBSBAWM,MAGGIE GEE,ED HUSAIN

& OTHERS search for British values

BHIKHU PAREKH on multiculturalism and citizenship

DAVID GOODHART on the conflict between diversity and solidarity

Prospect FEBRUARY2008 5