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