Harvard
The derangement of Harvard
It is 60 years since William F. Buckley said that he would ‘rather be governed by the first 2,000 people…
The nerdy obsessive who became the world’s richest man
Seen by fellow pupils as an obnoxious loner, Bill Gates was a rebellious teenager, challenging his teachers and ‘at war’ with his parents
The contagions of the modern world
Disturbing trends in American healthcare, higher education, opioid use and crime come under scrutiny in Malcolm Gladwell’s sequel to The Tipping Point
Affirmative action was hurting black students
Harvard may have a slightly more difficult time poaching black students from Boston College, Miami University of Ohio, or other…
Duty vs pleasure
In this delightful sequel to her semi-autobiographical novel The Idiot (2017), which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, Elif…
A changed woman
Everyone knows Helen of Troy. The feckless sex popsicle betrayed her husband, Menelaus, and ran off with the dashing Paris,…
Obama’s disappearing legacy
This article is in The Spectator’s August 2020 US edition. Subscribe here to get yours. The presidency of Barack Obama was heralded…
The Ivy League’s dirty secret
New York There comes a point in a New York expat’s life when you suddenly realise that the liberal elites…
Letters: Judging students by achievement is a greater scourge than diversity at any cost
Harvard’s racial quotas Sir: While I largely agree with Coleman Hughes that racial quotas are counterproductive (‘The diversity trap’, 23 June),…
Not one of my Harvard students thinks Brexit is a good idea
My wife laughs that my love of gadgets is a remnant of my Communist upbringing, when western toys were objects…
Sappho in America
We are gripped by gossip. Curiosity is a tenacious emotion. In her essay on Push Comes to Shove, the autobiography…
Rich and fruity
F.R. Leavis once denounced the Twickenham edition of Pope’s Dunciad for producing a meagre trickle of text through a desert…
Asexual
There was a time when my husband, who often addresses the television, would habitually react to Edward Heath’s appearance on…
From Major to minor
‘Lobbying,’ writes William Waldegrave in this extraordinary memoir, ‘takes many forms.’ But he has surely reported a variant hitherto unrecorded…
A story of vile, stupid lefties – and dodgy statistics
Thoroughly cheering news emerged this week that left-handed people are likely to earn between 10 and 12 per cent less…
Up close and personal
In recycling his most intimate encounters as fiction – including amazing feats of promiscuity in small-town New England – John Updike drew unashamedly on his own experiences for inspiration, says Philip Hensher
That’s not entertainment
You can learn a lot from this book. Latin America has a smaller economy than Europe. Big companies can spend…
