Rupert Shortt

1 month ago | thespectator.com | Philip Hensher |Arabella Byrne |Leyla Sanai |Rupert Shortt

A commercial publisher bringing out a book of old academic essays on Austrian writers, some completely unknown to English readers, might need an explanation. In this case the author is W.G. Sebald, who produced a series of cogitative books that made his name in the 1990s. Before he acquired the worldwide authority of The Emigrants, The Rings of Saturn and Austerlitz, Sebald had a career in the academic proponency of German literature.

1 month ago | thespectator.com | James R. Snell |Paul Wood |Jacob Heilbrunn |Rupert Shortt

The United States has begun what may well prove to be a long — and likely doomed — campaign of airstrikes against Ansar Allah, also known as the Houthis, in Yemen. For a year and a half since October 2023, the Houthis have been highly successful in disrupting shipping in the Red Sea, launching missiles and drones at cargo ships, oil tankers, and passenger vessels — hitting some, sinking fewer, and inconveniencing millions.

1 month ago | thespectator.com | Paul Wood |Rupert Shortt |James R. Snell |Niall Ferguson

No one covers up their war crimes any more. They film them, celebrate them, post them on X. So we have videos from Syria this week showing Islamist fighters making terrified Alawite men get on their hands and knees and howl like dogs. In one video, the victims crawl along a street spattered with blood and gore as a bearded gunman clubs them with a wooden pole. The camera comes to rest on half a dozen bodies. Then we hear rifle shots.

1 month ago | thespectator.com | Jacob Heilbrunn |Rupert Shortt |Matthew Foldi |Daryl McCann

So much for President Donald J. Trump’s serial vows to extricate America from the Middle East’s seemingly endless wars and feuds. His bombing on Saturday of numerous targets in Yemen has further enmeshed it in them. Several weeks of bombing loom as Trump vows to crush the Iranian-backed Houthi militia and warns Tehran that it might be in for similar treatment.

1 month ago | thespectator.com | Rupert Shortt |Arabella Byrne |Leyla Sanai |Catriona Olding

A.J. Ayer and other thinkers linked to the Vienna Circle famously contradicted themselves. A claim such as “all truths are scientific truths” cannot itself be verified scientifically. So whether the assertion is true or false, it follows that there is at least one fact which isn’t a physical fact. Thus metaphysics buries its own undertakers. Yet Ayer’s ideas survive today in mutated form and influence other subjects besides philosophy.