The Patriarchs by Angela Saini review – the roots of male domination
A scientific and historical survey of patriarchy shows that there’s nothing inevitable about itAre men and women naturally different, and do the roles socially assigned to us proceed from those...
View ArticleTime to Think by Hannah Barnes review – inside Britain’s only clinic for...
The BBC Newsnight reporter looks at what led to the closure of the Tavistock Centre, and what it means to be transgenderThere are knowns, as the saying goes, and there are known unknowns. But most...
View ArticleFuries: Stories of the Wicked, Wild and Untamed review – a slick and starry...
Tackling gendered insults head on, A-list authors deliver a smart anthology of fun and fearless tales to celebrate Virago’s 50th birthday“Attempting to diminish women by name-calling is nothing new,”...
View ArticleWho Gets Believed? by Dina Nayeri – why asylum seekers struggle to be understood
For the author of The Ungrateful Refugee, all the world’s a stage; its gatekeepers – immigration officers, courts, cops – incredulous audiences that the most vulnerable have to convinceWhen the burning...
View ArticleThe big idea: in a disaster, bad help can be worse than no help at all
Emergency relief must be about money, not well-intentioned donations of goodsThe first time I understood quite how bad emergency relief can be was in the aftermath of the Indian Ocean tsunami in...
View ArticleRavenous by Henry Dimbleby review – rage against the food machine
The Leon co-founder and campaigner points the finger at the forces that make modern diets so unhealthyOne morning as he was getting up, Henry Dimbleby’s daughter asked him if he’d always been quite so...
View ArticleSaving Time by Jenny Odell review – clocking off
The artist and writer offers a powerful critique of the way we conceive of time in the modern, industrial world, and explores alternativesTime took on an elastic and sinuous quality during the Covid-19...
View ArticleWeathering by Arline Geronimus review – how discrimination makes you sick
A public health expert charts the cumulative effect of prejudice on peoples’ bodies, from heart disease to cancerArline Geronimus has spent the last 40 years researching racial and class injustice in...
View ArticleThe Patriarchs by Angela Saini review – why it’s still a man’s world
Saini’s stirring, all too timely study of patriarchy asks how such inequality took hold, and persists, even while some matrilineal societies flourishAngela Saini’s 2017 Inferior: How Science Got Women...
View ArticleMatthew Desmond: ‘The poverty rate in America and the UK should be zero – and...
For the sociologist and Pulitzer prize-winning author of Evicted, a heartbreaking study of the American housing crisis, bearing witness was not enough. In his new book, Poverty, By America, he offers...
View ArticleThe big idea: why we should study the history that never happened
Dismissed by some as mere speculation, examining ‘what ifs’ can shed valuable light on neglected perspectivesThinking about alternative scenarios is tempting, both in our everyday lives and when we are...
View ArticleTravellers to Unimaginable Lands by Dasha Kiper review – how dementia changes...
A clinical psychologist turns the spotlight on caregivers in this profoundly compassionate studyAn elegant woman enjoys a gin and tonic and dinner with her husband in a cosy Italian restaurant near...
View ArticlePoverty, By America by Matthew Desmond review – how the rich keep the poor down
A Pulitzer-winning sociologist argues that the United States’s gross inequality is no accidentIt’s no wonder Americans have failed to eliminate poverty, sociologist Matthew Desmond maintains in his new...
View ArticleLetter: John Eldridge obituary
John Eldridge made a powerful impact on my teaching and thinking, first as a tutor-organiser for the Workers’ Educational Association in the 1970s, and, later, as a research worker on a project at the...
View ArticleArrangements in Blue by Amy Key review – cathartic meditation on singledom
The poet’s Joni Mitchell-inspired memoir of her partnerless life marks an important shift in ideas about intimacy and solitudeA couple of years ago, I tried to create a playlist of songs for those who...
View ArticleOperation Chiffon by Peter Taylor review – how they talked their way out of...
In this compelling account, the author and documentary-maker describes how decades of covert communications between the British government and the IRA eased the path to the Good Friday agreement –...
View ArticleGood Girls by Hadley Freeman review – anorexia from within
The journalist and former in-patient offers a clear-eyed view of a debilitating and misunderstood illnessHadley Freeman was 14 when a seemingly innocuous comment blew her life apart. Three years...
View ArticleDivided by Annabel Sowemimo review – the roots of racism in medicine
From the treatment of BAME patients historically to the disproportionate number of Covid deaths, this important study by an NHS doctor exposes discrimination in healthcareAnnabel Sowemimo is an NHS...
View ArticleLook at the Lights, My Love by Annie Ernaux review – supermarket blues
The Nobel laureate’s diaristic reflections on retail leave much to be desiredSupermarkets. What are they? Places to shop, to fill your fridge? Sociologists have argued that they are “non-places” –...
View ArticleFree and Equal by Daniel Chandler review – the road to fairness
A stirring call to make justice and equity a reality by applying the ideas of liberal philosopher John RawlsIf members of the shadow frontbench seek inspiration on how to differentiate their future...
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