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6 days ago | 
mankind.substack.com | David Roman |Christopher Harding
Get more from David Roman in the Substack appAvailable for iOS and Android
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Jan 27, 2025 | 
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.
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Jan 25, 2025 | 
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.
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Jan 24, 2025 | 
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.
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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.
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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’.
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Nov 6, 2024 | 
spectator.com.au | Christopher Harding
The Taiwan Story: How a Small Island Will Dictate the Global Future Viking, pp.288, 18.99 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.
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Nov 5, 2024 | 
spectator.co.uk | Christopher Harding
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.
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Oct 14, 2024 | 
engelsbergideas.com | Christopher Harding
At points in the British Museum’s deeply atmospheric new exhibition, Silk Roads, you can hear in the background the steady clip-clop of hooves. It is the rhythm of trade carried on camel- and horse-back, day in and day out for centuries, from one end of the Eurasian continent to the other.
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Oct 10, 2024 | 
unherd.com | Christopher Harding
diet cultureJapanKeir Starmernanny stateObesitySocietyUK
The new Labour government appears to be as relaxed about developing a ‚Äúnanny state‚ÄĚ reputation as it is about being seen as a purveyor of economic doom and gloom.
