Katrina Rains Down Calamity…so we, of course look for a scapegoat
Disasters happen. Two hundred and fifty years ago, on November 1, 1755, the Portuguese capital, Lisbon, was flattened by an earthquake that killed thousands of its inhabitants. Daily Telegraph... Read more

Just like Scotland, I'm in the middle of an identity crisis
This year I find myself confronted with a "trilemma" —a three-horned dilemma. If, as seems highly likely, Scottish voters choose to mark the tercentenary of the Act of Union by voting the Scottish National Party into power in Edinburgh, I shall take a significant step closer to having to choose between English and Scottish citizenship. Daily Telegraph.... Read more

Heat and Youth: the fatal fuel of this escalating Summer of rage
Are we heading for a Summer of Rage? A generation ago, young Americans flocked to San Francisco with flowers in their hair for a hippie Summer of Love. But today the potent combination of young people and sunny weather is producing something very different. The Sixties slogan was "Make Love Not War". The 2006 slogan seems to be the very opposite. Daily Telegraph.... Read more

It's exam time for Britain's dons - and they're failing, badly
I have spent much of the past week marking final papers written by undergraduates and graduates. I would guess I have been doing this kind of thing for more than 15 years now at four different universities - Cambridge, Oxford, New York and now Harvard. Daily Telegraph.... Read more

Heaven knows how we'll rekindle our religion, but I believe we must
Contrary to popular belief, it was not G K Chesterton who said: "When men stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing. They believe in anything." But he should have said it. Chesterton - who is nowadays best remembered, if at all, for his Father Brown stories - viewed atheism with the utmost suspicion. Daily Telegraph. ... Read more

The atheist sloth ethic, or why Europeans don't believe in work
In Europe, nothing happens in August. It is not, of course, that everyone is on holiday. Many readers of this column will be among the unhappy few who are still slogging in to work. But notice the half-empty commuter train, the uncannily smooth flow of traffic at rush hour. Daily Telegraph.... Read more

Alas for Kerry, the days of transatlantic amity are gone
John Kerry's acceptance speech at the Democratic convention on Thursday night was billed as an exercise in matching machismo, designed to persuade the American electorate that this challenger can be just as tough on the terrorists - and just as proudly patriotic - as the incumbent he is trying to unseat. Daily Telegraph.... Read more

We were the Bright Young Prigs
Fifteen years ago, Rachel Johnson created a monster - the much-derided Oxford Myth. But now, she has one last word for the critics. Daily Telegraph.... Read more

It's like being naked in the street
Niall Ferguson is the lastest historian to strike it rich on television. So why, asks Cassandra Jardine, is he so afraid of poverty? Daily Telegraph.... Read more