Do you agree with Steven Pinker – is violence in decline? | Madeleine Bunting
Join me as I read Pinker's new book on the history of violence, and examine some of the claims of this 'astonishing' bookBilled as one of the most important books in recent years, Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature: The Decline of Violence...
The US swallowed these cups of tea to justify its imperial aims
Greg Mortenson's wild Pakistan tale exposes more than one fantasist – it reveals Americans' delusion about their 'civilising' missionIn the mid-90s an American nurse, Greg Mortenson, was sleeping in his car to save rent so he could fulfil a promise h...
Happy about development aid | Madeleine Bunting
Despite some gaps in his argument, Charles Kenny's cheerful polemic counters the current development pessimism on aidAfter plenty of aid pessimism, here is a relentlessly cheerful polemic, Getting Better, which is delighting development experts in the ...
Hail the 21st-century Enlightenment. Ideas don’t come much bigger | Madeleine Bunting
We need to live very differently, argues a bold new text. And that calls for nothing less than a revolution of the mindWe've had months of discussion (and confusion) about the Big Society, years of entertainment from Big Brother, so perhaps it's only t...
Red Tory intrigues and infuriates | Madeleine Bunting
Phillip Blond's rants in his new book put him squarely into the oddball tradition of radical Toryism to which he lays claim
Phillip Blond was an unknown theology lecturer in Cumbria 18 months ago; now he has had the front cover of...
Gilderdale’s trial was horrific but necessary to retain a vital principle | Madeleine Bunting
It is dangerous, especially for the vulnerable, to think that assisted dying is the only way to take control of death
When Terry Pratchett described, in his Dimbleby lecture last week, his father's cheerful macho stoicism – when all the tubes are in and "I'm no good...
Small is beautiful – an economic idea that has sadly been forgotten | Madeleine Bunting