CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS ISSUE
PHILIP BALL

is a science writer is a freelance journalist

JEREMY CLARKE MARK COUSINS

is the author of The Story of Film (Pavilion Books)
MICHAEL CROSS’s

contents
Issue one hundred and fifteen October 2005

column “Public Domain” appears in the Guardian

RICHARD DAWKINS was voted Britain’s top public intellectual last year

COVER STORY

is director of the Royal African Society
RICHARD DOWDEN

26
Thinking globally
DAVID HERMAN

book Blue Electric Blonde will be published in the spring
DUNCAN FALLOWELL’s

is a senior researcher at Demos
CATHERINE FIESCHI DAVID HERMAN

is a television producer

KATHRYN HUGHES

is the author of The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs Beeton is professor of the classical tradition at Oxford University

Prospect and Foreign Policy’s list of the world’s top public intellectuals shows that we have moved away from the concerns of the last century.

RICHARD JENKYNS

24
The top 100 list
Here is Prospect’s selection and criteria for inclusion. Now vote for your top five.

TERENCE KEALEY

is vice-chancellor of the University of Buckingham is a writer living in France presents BBC4’s Art Safari

TIM KING

BEN LEWIS

MICHAEL LIND

is the author of What Lincoln Believed (Doubleday)

JOHN LLOYD is former editor of the FT magazine KENAN MALIK

AFTER KATRINA

21 Left out
JOHN LLOYD

is the author of Man, Beast and Zombie (Phoenix)

12 Stormy waters
CAROL M SWAIN

PETER MCGUFFIN

is coeditor of Psychiatric Genetics and Genomics (OUP)

Black Americans are doing better than New Orleans suggests—for now.

The centre-left is in retreat across most of Europe. DEBATE

DAVID MITCHELL’s

book Black Swan Green is forthcoming from Sceptre is a professor of politics at Princeton University is a freelance writer

13 System failure
ALASDAIR ROBERTS

28 Will science explain mental illness?
PETER MCGUFFIN
VS

ANDREW MORAVCSIK

It wasn’t just Bush’s failure. American democracy is myopic. OPINIONS

STEVEN ROSE

KAMRAN NAZEER

ALASDAIR ROBERTS’s book, Blacked Out: Government Secrecy in the Information Age, will be published in January STEVEN ROSE

16 Opiate of the masses
RICHARD DAWKINS

Will the sciences of genetics and psychopharmacology lead to greater understanding of mental illness? Or do we need a broader approach? ESSAYS

is the author of The 21st Century Brain (Jonathan Cape)

The highly addictive drug Gerin oil.

34 In defence of mandarins 17 Emotional confusion
CATHERINE FIESCHI MICHAEL LIND

IAN STEWART’s book The Mayor of Uglyville’s Dilemma is forthcoming CAROL M SWAIN is author of The New White Nationalism in America (CUP) ERIK TARLOFF

What is the role of emotion in politics?

18 Biography and sexism
KATHRYN HUGHES

The meritocratic mandarinate shielded democracy from the excesses feared by 19th-century liberals. But the nightmare of mobocracy may yet come true.

is a novelist and writer

STELLA TILLYARD’s

next book A Royal Affair will be published in March 2006

Why do women biographers get confused with their subjects? Men don’t.

38 Cherchez l’enfant
RICHARD JENKYNS

PETER WATSON is author of Ideas: A History from Fire to Freud (Weidenfeld) DAVID WILLETTS

20 Academic press
PETER WATSON

is shadow secretary of state for trade and industry

University presses are an unsung corner of intellectual life.

The tradition of children’s writing has been revived by two good—though overrated—authors. JK Rowling and Philip Pullman, with their silly metaphysics, reflect our times.

4 PROSPECT October 2005

www.prospect-magazine.co.uk

44 Bacon’s shadow
TERENCE KEALEY

Francis Bacon claimed that technology grew out of science, and that science should be state-funded. Wrong twice. SPECIAL REPORT

arts&books
74 Seeking Shakespeare
ERIK TARLOFF

48 Public sector IT failures
MICHAEL CROSS

Despite Britain’s poor record with big public sector IT schemes, much of Labour’s programme depends on them. Have we learnt from the past? JOURNAL

Lack of facts about Shakespeare seems to encourage biographers. Peter Ackroyd is the latest.

76 Rushdie the warrior-poet
KAMRAN NAZEER

54 Born in Bradford
KENAN MALIK

Salman Rushdie’s disdain for closed cultures extends far beyond Islam. COLUMNS

I witnessed the moment the British left gave up on secular universalism. COLUMNS

67 Widescreen
MARK COUSINS

Charting cinema’s changes since 1995.

10 These islands
STELLA TILLYARD

68 Private view
BEN LEWIS

Succour for Michael Buerk.

Aaaaaargh! It’s video art.

15 Washington watch
TUMBLER

FICTION

60 Acknowledgements
DAVID MITCHELL

78 Cultural tourist
Zadie and the return of beauty. Plus “Under the radar”

Katrina changed everything—or did it?

53 Out of Africa
RICHARD DOWDEN

I, Clive Pike, shall now inform my followers of the people who helped me bring forth the Book. REVIEWS

85 Smallscreen
DAVID HERMAN

China brings geopolitics back to Africa.

Ten years of Prospect, ten years of telly. FORTHCOMING Result of the Prospect/Foreign Policy global intellectuals poll Fiction by Gautam Malkani Robert Jackson on the EU budget battle Michael Coveney considers the state of theatre criticism
THE NEXT ISSUE OF PROSPECT IS PUBLISHED ON 20TH OCTOBER

57 Lab report
PHILIP BALL

70 The horrors of Houellebecq
TIM KING

Clint’s dead, but his genome lives on.

58 Brussels diary
ANDREW MORAVCSIK

Michel Houellebecq’s new novel is a further dig at literature, aspiration and himself. And a biography of the writer tries to explain his self-hatred.

Brussels is best when it is boring.

72 Vidal at 80 88 Modern manners
JEREMY CLARKE DUNCAN FALLOWELL

My daffodil-staring odyssey. REGULARS

Once the most stylish bitch in the US, Gore Vidal approaches his 80th birthday with his reputation in decline.

6 Letters 8 News & Curiosities plus Enigmas & puzzles IAN STEWART 17 Numbers game THE CRUNCHER 86 The generalist DIDYMUS 87 The list

73 A Tory community
DAVID WILLETTS

The Conservatives have traditionally combined two principles—personal freedom and public service. It now needs a new idea of community.

POLITICAL PUBLICATION OF THE YEAR
Political Studies Association

PROSPECT October 2005 5