The Joy of Six 1415

Schuyler Mitchell argues that the national security state is a wonderful tool for a skilled authoritarian to crush American democracy: "If you tell an FBI agent to proactively go out and find anarchists, violent extremists, before they can act, they’re going to look for someone with that ideology. Now you have Trump telling people to go out and look for antifa, which means they can be opening assessments on people who they, for whatever reason, feel have this nebulous, broad ideology."

"Arendt did not strive for consensus – in her view, politics had to be antagonistic and, if needed, controversial. What mattered most was the act in itself. Her whole body of work could be summarised as a call to democratic action. Speak, criticise, engage with others – do anything you can to avoid the peril of silence, and the temptation of violence." Marc Le Chevallier elucidates Hannah Arendt's belief that open dialogue and debate are vital to the health of democracy. 

Justin Kadi explains why Vienna has been described as "a renters' utopia".

"He took inspiration from the deluge of countercultural books in the 1960s concerning earth mysteries, typically trying to decode the neolithic constructs of Silbury Hill, Avebury, and the stones of Cornwall. With a Blakean grandness fuelled by a quasi-Situationist eye, he sought to establish a sacred geometry to link the Hawksmoor churches together." Robert Davidson talks to Iain Sinclair to mark the 50th anniversary of his influential book of poems Lud Heat.

Colin Burrow reviews a biography of Muriel Spark and the first volume of her collected letters: "By 1963 she had arrived. She was rich enough to buy green and blue Hermès suede gloves in Paris. She was also suave enough to conceal beneath those gloves (most of the time at least) the knuckle-duster with which she had established herself as a Famous Author."

Modernism in Metroland on Maxwell Fry and the rise of the high-street electricity showroom.