Essay

The Mekong

Requiem for a river

Can one of the world’s great waterways survive its development?

Animal minds

Animals think, therefore…

The inner lives of animals are hard to study. But there is evidence that they may be a lot richer than science once thought

Asia’s second-world-war ghosts

The unquiet past

Seven decades on from the defeat of Japan, memories of war still divide East Asia

Manhood

Men adrift

Badly educated men in rich countries have not adapted well to trade, technology or feminism

A planet of suburbs

Places apart

The world is becoming ever more suburban, and the better for it

The future of the book

From papyrus to pixels

The digital transformation of the way books are written, published and sold has only just begun

China and the world

What China wants

As China becomes, again, the world’s largest economy, it wants the respect it enjoyed in centuries past. But it does not know how to achieve or deserve it

Financial crises

The slumps that shaped modern finance

Finance is not merely prone to crises, it is shaped by them. Five historical crises show how aspects of today’s financial system originated—and offer lessons for today’s regulators

Democracy

What’s gone wrong with democracy

Democracy was the most successful political idea of the 20th century. Why has it run into trouble, and what can be done to revive it?