Didactic impulses or nationalist piety can shape the work of even the most detached biographer.… Read the rest

Marina Warner on the spiral of duplicity between thoughtful men and women and bogus mediums.… Read the rest

Vulgar Kaelism gets it wrong: she did not think popular movies were automatically art, and she was not a moral relativist.… Read the rest

When scholars actually look at evidence, they find rapists and failing students as pleased with themselves as the next person.… Read the rest

Croatian President Stipe Mesic tells his fellow Croatians they must honour all their commitments, not only the painless ones.… Read the rest

Shouting match over genes versus parents ruffles calm of Radio 3.… Read the rest

Steven Pinker says parents have less influence than they think, while peers have more.… Read the rest

Oliver James says emphasis on genes to explain human nature is a way to escape guilt.… Read the rest

Bernard Williams points out that Nietzsche did not settle for ironic chat or a smug nod at deconstruction-work, and nor should we.… Read the rest

Twist and turn, avoid details, oversimplify: such postmodern tricks tarnish the integrity of the left.… Read the rest

Simon Blackburn on the meaninglessness of exhortations to tolerate all points of view.… Read the rest

Difference feminism as separate education for schoolgirls relies on few and narrow studies, Margaret Talbot says.… Read the rest

Philip Gosse explained the fossil evidence as God’s little joke.… Read the rest

Outraged father wonders who decided that parents should help children with homework. Surely that’s someone else’s duty.… Read the rest

Exams board chief intervened to mark down bright students by way of making A level scores strike a ‘balance’.… Read the rest

Another entry for the Intelligent Design shelf. No Free Lunch claims that complexity requires intelligence, but reviewer is not persuaded.… Read the rest

Geneticist Steve Jones predicts redundancy for men, and is aghast at popularity of ‘masculinity industry’ in American universities.… Read the rest

Steven Pinker chides critics of Wilson and Dawkins for ’25 years of pointless attacks’… Read the rest

Home secretary David Blunkett is under attack for saying English is a useful language in the UK.… Read the rest

Oxford historian Roy Foster takes on tearful or nostalgic myths of Ireland’s past.… Read the rest