july 2020 spectator us cover

FROM THE MAGAZINE

July 2020

‘What’s really happening in America is a crisis of authority, from the White House down to your local police precinct. This in turn derives from a crisis in America’s identity — and that’s not about race or racism. It is a crisis in national confidence.’

Slip tease

Slipper selfies reveal our work-from-home style

By Laura Freeman

From the Magazine

The modern world of advertising

They prey on our unconscious

By Chilton Williamson, Jr.

From the Magazine

Internet

Godfrey’s drag queen story time

Do it for the children

By Godfrey Elfwick

From the Magazine

What does it mean to go ‘stir crazy’?

Only now I discover my assumptions about that phrase were wrong

By Dot Wordsworth

From the Magazine

Politics

Prodigal son-in-law

Who is the real Jared Kushner?

By Paul Wood

From the Magazine

Internet

What we need is social media distancing

Social media brings out the worst in us because the algorithm rewards us for being tribal, divisive and emotional

By Bridget Phetasy

From the Magazine

Politics

The Kushner conundrum

Is he a scapegoat or a saboteur?

By Amber Duke

From the Magazine

Internet

Just-one-knee syndrome

They took a knee, as it were, when what they should have done was throw themselves to the ground

By Toby Young

From the Magazine

Politics

Jared and the Jews

Kushner is a Jewish American Hofjude, a privileged fixer with connections

By Dominic Green

From the Magazine

Politics

End of empire

The era of US dominion has now passed

By Andrew Bacevich

From the Magazine

Politics

Is this the end of history?

George Floyd was a pretext, not a cause. The cause was destruction of our civilization

By Roger Kimball

From the Magazine

Politics

Bright lights, abandoned city

Americans are no longer moving to their shining cultural capital

By Chadwick Moore

From the Magazine

Spectator Editorial

No justice, no peace

What’s really happening in America is a crisis of authority, from the White House down to your local police precinct

By Spectator Editorial

From the Magazine

Politics

The rioters and the rentiers

Post-industrial cities aren’t working

By Michael Lind

From the Magazine

Politics

The new inequality

We’re experiencing an unhealthy overcorrection in racial politics

By Douglas Murray

From the Magazine

Politics

Self-righteous vandals

The attempt to prettify history is ugly

By Daniel McCarthy

From the Magazine

Politics

Marching against racism is too easy

What we need is practical change

By Lionel Shriver

From the Magazine

Defund colleges, not cops

Police are not the root of our problems. Academia is

By Peter W. Wood

From the Magazine

Books + Arts

Books

Young Hamlet

Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell reviewed

By Matthew Adams

From the Magazine

Books

A time to keep silence

A History of Solitude by David Vincent reviewed

By Stuart Jeffries

From the Magazine

Art

Candid camera

Jacques Henri Lartigue composed his photographs like a painter

By William Boyd

From the Magazine

Art

Hello, boys: Lucas Cranach’s bodies beautiful

Why look at black-and-white books? You want the good stuff

By Laura Freeman

From the Magazine

Art

Revolution then: The Patriot stands alone

Gibson achieves peace of mind by dismembering a redcoat with a hatchet

By Craig Bruce Smith

From the Magazine

Art

Louis C.K. pulls it off

Funny is money

By James Delingpole

From the Magazine

Books

Something woke this way comes

Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World by Tara Isabella Burton reviewed

By Andrew Stuttaford

From the Magazine

Books

Money trouble

Foretelling the End of Capitalism: Intellectual Misadventures Since Marx by Francesco Boldizzoni reviewed

By Frank Lawton

From the Magazine

Books

Tori rebel

Resistance: A Songwriter’s Story of Hope, Courage and Change by Tori Amos reviewed

By Andrew Doyle

From the Magazine

Books

The fatwa artists

Twitter mobs are making journalism and literature more boring

By Matt Purple

From the Magazine

Life

Place

Flavors of the past

Visiting Uzbekistan is a huge adventure

By Lesley Downer

From the Magazine

Home

Stargazing under lockdown

The late great American astronomer Leslie Peltier was onto something

By Bill Kauffman

From the Magazine

Place

Custard and coffee

Lisbon is the perfect weekend destination to do very little

By James Delingpole

From the Magazine

Place

No smokes without buyer

Hunting cigarettes up I-95

By Benjamin Riley

From the Magazine

Home

In praise of French doctors

Thirty-five years ago, my nurse had competed against an English team who played rugby with a violence that was incredible

By Jeremy Clarke

From the Magazine

High Life

Switzerland is now an enemy of the rich

The new socialist regime in Bern is out to kill the golden calf and is succeeding

By Taki

From the Magazine

Diary

Can COVID-19 tell whether a protest is progressive?

Clearly the virus targets especially working-class and middle-class workplaces and industries…

By Sohrab Ahmari

From the Magazine

Food and Drink

Drink

All about the allium

Summertime, and the garlic is fragrant

By Jane Stannus

From the Magazine

Drink

Do the vegans want blood?

Meat is murder, they say

By Laurie Graham

From the Magazine

Drink

Born Toulouse: varietals, vermouth and verse

Pinot Noir ‘should be approached like a beautiful woman — with respect, some knowledge, and great hopes’

By Roger Kimball

From the Magazine