CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS ISSUE
RUSHANARA ALI is associate director of the Young Foundation MARGARET ATWOOD’s
most recent work is The Penelopiad (Canongate Books)
contents
Issue one hundred and twenty-four July 2006
PAUL BARKER’s Arts in Society has been reissued by Five Leaves Publications MARK COUSINS
is the author of The Story of Film (Pavilion Books)
BERNARD CRICK
is the author of George Orwell: A Life (Penguin)
COVER STORY
NICK CROWE
was the drummer for the rock band Gay Dad
20
Islam’s reformers
EHSAN MASOOD
is author of Black Garden (New York University Press)
THOMAS DE WAAL RICHARD DOWDEN is the director of the Royal African Society STEPHEN EVERSON
is writing a book on metaphysics and the mind
DEAN GODSON is research director of Policy Exchange LYNSEY HANLEY
A group of Islamic thinkers are challenging the literal reading of the Koran as young Muslims seek a less insular faith.
writes for the Observer and the New Statesman
23
Q&A with Tariq Ramadan
Is there a crisis within Islam? Can you be a gay Muslim?
DAVID HERMAN is a contributing editor to Prospect TIM KING
is a writer living in France works for the underground
DAN KUPER
PHILIPPE LEGRAIN is the author of Open World: The Truth about Globalisation BEN LEWIS
presents BBC4’s Art Safari is Asia editor of the FT
OPINIONS
ESSAYS
VICTOR MALLET EHSAN MASOOD
10 One year later
RUSHANARA ALI & GEOFF MULGAN
28 Melody makers
NICK CROWE
is the editor of How Do You Know? (Pluto Press)
DAVID MEPHAM
The 7/7 attacks were not such a turning point after all.
is associate director of
IPPR is the author of Good and Bad Power (Penguin)
GEOFF MULGAN
11 Barred by Moscow
THOMAS DE WAAL
Despite claims of decline, music in Britain is thriving. New digital technologies have created a new generation of producer-players.
is the author of Send in the Idiots (Bloomsbury)
KAMRAN NAZEER FRED PEARCE
Putin’s Russia has turned insular and paranoid. It won’t even give me a visa.
34 Mandarin intellectuals
KAMRAN NAZEER
is the author of When the Rivers Run Dry (Eden Project Books)
12 Gone native
DEAN GODSON
Stuffed full of philosophers and physicists, the civil service elite is the last refuge of the British intellectual.
ALEX RENTON
won the 2006 Glenfiddich award for best food writer
Alastair Crooke’s views on Hamas are typical of the PC spooks. BRIEFING NOTES
KEVIN RUSHBY is the author of Paradise (Constable and Robinson) ALAN RYAN
14 Gordon’s world
DAVID MEPHAM
38 The return of nuclear fusion?
FRED PEARCE
is warden of New College, Oxford University
biography of Keynes is published by Macmillan
ROBERT SKIDELSKY’s IAN STEWART
What kind of foreign policy can we expect from Brown as prime minister?
The world’s biggest ever nuclear fusion reactor is about to be built. But is it really money well spent?
is professor of mathematics at Warwick University
15 Who rules Oxford?
ALAN RYAN
STELLA TILLYARD’s book A Royal Affair is published by Chatto and Windus ROBERT H WADE
Critics and supporters of Oxford’s reform are doomed to disappointment.
WITNESS
44 A Brummie’s lament
LYNSEY HANLEY
is professor of political economy at the LSE is Berlin correspondent for the Financial Times
16 Language games
BERNARD CRICK
HUGH WILLIAMSON
The government is denying free English lessons to recent migrants.
The council estate I grew up on has just elected its first BNP councillor. The working-class defensiveness that I fought to escape is alive and well.
2 PROSPECT July 2006
