Special report

60How Merck made a killing Stockmarket pressure to find “blockbuster”drugs has forced drug companies to push products to market ever more aggressively. In the case of Merck’s painkiller Vioxx, this had disastrous and lethal results. This is the story of how a blockbuster backfired. JIM GILES

Columns

10Washington watch Who’d be in Obama’s cabinet? TUMBLER

20Common law Caught red-handed. ALEX McBRIDE

37China café é The churlish Chinese. MARK KITTO

43This sporting life Palestinian autosports. DAVID GOLDBLATT

52Lab report The state of British physics. PHILIP BALL

66Brussels diary Is the EU having a good crisis? MANNEKEN PIS

88The prisoner Irather like this new prison. CAR HILLS

Regulars

4Letters 6News & curiosities 8Grayling’s question AC GRAYLING 8Enigmas & puzzles IAN STEWART 86The generalist 87The list

Forthcoming

JONATHAN FORD profiles Mikhail Fridman

GEOFF MULGAN asks if Charles Murray’s new book is immoral

JONATHAN POWER interviews Paul McCartney

ANTONIA QUIRKE’ s tour of shopping malls

The next issue of Prospect will be published on 20th November

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Fiction

Archives Every article from every issue of Prospect .

68Shadow of candles flickering red Music helped Chen Wei to survive the cultural revolution. But it also brought him an unexpected lesson in desire. JONATHAN TEL

Reviews

74An Asian whitewash Ziauddin Sardar’s latest book touches on many of the most troubling questions of British Asian identity. But his blinkered adherence to the politics of resentment means it contains few useful answers. KAMRAN NAZEER

76Heaven scent An extraordinary new book shows that behind the marketing clichéés, perfume can still be an art of pure beauty. MICHAEL BYWATER

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Web exclusives

BECKY HOGGE replies to Peter Bazalgette on digital privacy DAVID HANNAY and PHILIP BOBBITT debate whether there should be a League of Democracies

JOSHUA KURLANTZICK on how the US’s financial loss is China’s gain

PETER BERGEN replies to Jason Burke

77Two cheers for democracy In his study of Britain’s democratic traditions, David Marquand offers a history that is also a masterclass in politics. MICHAEL KENNY

Online archive

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

78The peaceful xenophobes Two new works on empire and nationalism should make us think again about conflating xenophobia, nationalism and aggression. ERIC KAUFMANN

Arts columns

71Private view The art of an imaginary island.

BEN LEWIS

72Widescreen Stanley Donen’s dark direction.

MARK COUSINS

United Nations

DAVID RIEFF argues that the UN faces irrelevance In reply, EDWARD MORTIMER asks if Rieff has a better idea

DAVID HANNAY reviews Boutros Boutros-Ghali’s memoirs

The pharmaceutical industry

RICHARD HORTON on the fall of big pharma SHEREEN EL FEKI looked at how to get medicines to the world’s poor ANNIE MACCOBY BERGLOF on drugs and bipolar disorder

80Performance notes The Brahms enigma. MARTIN KETTLE

85Smallscreen There’s nothing real about reality television any more. PETER BAZALGETTE

African-Americans

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER makes the case for reparations for slavery

EDWARD SMITH meets the ghetto cricketers of Los Angeles

CAROL M SWAIN surveys the state of post-Katrina black America

Prospect NOVEMBER2008 3