Christopher Harding

2 months ago | thespectator.com | Peter Stothard |Tom Jones |Christopher Harding |Stuart Kelly

It is rare to read a book about Cicero that likens its hero to a demagogue. Rome’s prosecutor of conspiracy and corruption in the last years of the Republic is seen more commonly as a toga-draped crusader for virtue. Was he also a ranter steeped in violence, crude character-assassination, tendentious storytelling and racial stereotypes? Yes, argues Josiah Osgood, an American historian, whose book persuasively analyzes a range of Cicero’s murder, fraud and extortion cases.

2 months ago | thespectator.com | Ian O’Doherty |Christopher Harding |Charles Lipson |Taylor Millard

Before the American election in November, there was unanimity among the Irish political classes that Kamala Harris would comfortably win. This support for Harris was matched by a casual disdain for Donald Trump. Before becoming Taoiseach, Simon Harris had dismissed Trump as nothing but “an awful gowl,” which essentially means someone is a moron.

2 months ago | thespectator.com | Christopher Harding |Casey Chalk |John Connolly |Christopher Sandford

The United States of China, anyone? The idea that a federal China might be able to accommodate within it a relatively autonomous Taiwan is one of the more radical solutions mooted to the thorny problem of Taiwan’s status. The difficulty, of course, is that neither the Chinese Communist Party nor Taiwan’s leaders would find such an outcome remotely acceptable.

Jan 23, 2025 | nature.com | Emmajay Sutherland |Christopher Harding

AbstractCyclic dipeptides are produced by organisms across all domains of life, with many exhibiting anticancer and antimicrobial properties. Oxidations are often key to their biological activities, particularly C-C bond oxidation catalysed by tailoring enzymes including cyclodipeptide oxidases.

Nov 7, 2024 | engelsbergideas.com | Christopher Harding

A first wave of excitable western tourists began pouring into Japan 150 years ago. Among them was the English explorer Isabella Bird, who, in the late 1870s, journeyed through a country going through a profound and fascinating period of change. Nowhere was it more pronounced than in a city torn between a glorious past and an uncertain future. It even had two names, depending on whether a person preferred to look backwards or forwards. The old name was Edo; the new one, ‘Tokyo’: ‘Eastern Capital’.