My story

54Oxford’s poetry revolution Forty years ago, inspired by the 1968 revolts in Paris, I tried to get the glamorous Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko elected as Oxford’s professor of poetry. BERNARD WASSERSTEIN

Columns

10Matters of taste The day Idismembered a pig. ALEX RENTON

20Washington watch Latest on the Iowa caucuses. TUMBLER

30This sporting life Life after doping. GEOFFREY WHEATCROFT

37Letter from Jerusalem My fight for freedom of information. GERSHOM GORENBERG

46Lab report A surfer’s theory of everything. PHILIP BALL

53Rivers of Babylon Iraq’s revolutionary television. NIBRAS KAZIMI

58Brussels diary Slovenia’s troubles. MANNEKEN PIS

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

Forthcoming

ALEXANDER LINKLATER interviews Christopher Hitchens

HOWARD JACOBSON on the way we talk about sex

RICHARD KELLY on the renaissance of England’s northeast The next issue of Prospect will be published on 31st January

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60The wink In the old people’s home, Jean saw him again. This time, she knew what to do. RUTH RENDELL

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Reviews

66The pricks of conscience Why are writers expected to comment on political issues? LINDA GRANT

68Grandmasters of war Daniel Johnson’s history of cold-war chess is muddled and biased. ERIK TARLOFF

69Stages of history Why does Michael Billington’s story of British postwar theatre ignore musicals? ROBERT GORE-LANGTON

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What next for Kosovo? MARY FITZGERALD on the other side of the Irish success story ANDREW JACK looks ahead to life in Russia after Putin

70Grandstanding pity More preening self-regard and rancid bad faith from John Berger. FREDERIC RAPHAEL

Arts columns

64Widescreen Faces in films. MARK COUSINS

72Private view Sickert’s Camden town nudes. BEN LEWIS

77Smallscreen Cranford’ s a cracker. CHRISTOPHER HIRD

80Performance notes The meaning of Stockhausen.

MARTIN KETTLE

Online archive

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

Ireland

JOHN O’FARRELL on the cultural gulf between north and south

DAVID MCWILLIAMS hails the Irish contribution to English culture

GARRET FITZGERALD & PAUL GILLESPIE on Anglo-Irish relations

Eastern Europe & communism

RADEK SIKORSKI recalls his time as a Polish defence minister in the early 1990s

BEN LEWIS tells communist jokes ERNEST GELLNER on what was left after the collapse of communism

Philosophy

CHAKRAVARTHI RAM-PRASAD asks why western philosophers ignore eastern thinkers

BRYAN MAGEE laments the quality of philosophical writing

HANS-JOHANN GLOCK tries to bridge the gap between the continental and analytic traditions

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