September 2011 Issue 35

Manchester Square 7 10 years after September 11, 2001

Counterpoints Hope for Libya; Remembering John Stott; Steyn fights the good fight; Moscow martyr; A Wagnerian soap opera 10

Letters Don’t knock Rowan Williams; Peter Singer’s standards; Chinese lessons; David Garnett’s best novel? 14

Toepfer and the Holocaust: An Exchange Richard J. Evans/Michael Pinto-Duschinsky 16

Columns Party Lines Daisy Waugh overhears the great debate on the London looters 19 On the Contrary Lionel Shriver refuses to let the mad and the bad shake her convictions 21 Points East & West Emanuele Ottolenghi queries double standards on Libya and Syria 22 The Outsider Douglas Murray urges post-riot reforms for British institutions 23 Living History Michael Burleigh denounces the postBreivik blame game 24 Jurisprudence Joshua Rozenberg looks at the huge task faced by the judge heading the phonehacking inquiry 25 European Eye Mara Delius finds that jitters in the US are spreading ripples across the pond 27 Open Season Geoffrey Owen argues that the chains of Communism are shackling Russian progress 28

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Civilisation Critique David Womersley enjoys Cynthia Ozick’s reworking of themes from Henry James 61

An old hatred returns Christopher Caldwell charts the comeback of anti-Semitism in France 32

In Memoriam 9/11 Reversing the decline of the West Jonathan Sacks urges our society to believe in itself again, a decade after the attacks 42 New poem Daniel Johnson Manhattan Elegy 41 Teaching rioters the right lessons Katharine Birbalsingh believes the English Baccalaureate offers schools a welcome academic rigour 48

Dispatches David Free in Sydney reports that a ticket for a burqa-clad driver became a national controversy 30

Features Burdening the banks will sink the recovery—and the Tories Tim Congdon warns George Osborne to be wary of the Vickers review 38 How liberals and looters trashed my town Peter Whittle goes back to Woolwich and finds his birthplace unrecognisable 44 Cameron can come out fighting—or throw in the towel Iain Martin says the PM has a golden opportunity to impose his social agenda 50 The what-ifs of the last days of Hitler Ian Kershaw explores the options that could have curtailed World War Two 54

Books Daniel Johnson on The Appointment by Herta Müller; Perlmann’s Silence by Pascal Mercier and The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes; Tibor Fischer on Rome by Robert Hughes; John Cottingham on The Great Partnership by Jonathan Sacks; Jeremy Jennings on Contesting Democracy by Jan Werner Müller 65 Music Jessica Duchen longs for the festival mood to last beyond the summer 70

Art Michael Prodger contemplates two forgotten British artists at Tate Britain 71

Film Peter Whittle says Almodóvar’s new offering doesn’t make the cut 72 Television Nick Cohen sympathises with dramatists stifled by BBC bureaucrats 73

Theatre Anne McElvoy is thrilled by a lithe Jude Law’s Eugene O’Neill revival 75

Drawing Board Steve Pyke Portraits of Philosophers 76

Overrated/Underrated Seumas Milne/Theodore Dalrymple by Michael Mosbacher and Jonathan Foreman 78

Chess Dominic Lawson revels in the competitive passions of amateur chess 80 Wine Saintsbury mulls over a vintage pichet of Pinter 81 Culture & Anarchy Simon Heffer admires Nikolaus Pevsner’s love affair with England 82

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