Six of the Best 852

Adrian Slade has some lessons from history for those who scent an easy way to power: "Soggy centrism has never worked and the process of arriving at a realignment that actually achieves something is very far from easy, particularly without reform of the electoral system."

"Right now, forbidding kids to walk and play outside unsupervised seems normal. But thanks to states revisiting their neglect laws - including South Carolina, Arkansas and Texas - soon this may seem as strange as it would have in the '80s." Lenore Skenazy reports growing support for free-range parenting.

Lynn Hunt reviews two books on the French philosopher Diderot, whom she describes as "the most radical thinker of the eighteenth century".

Stephen Fry and Ben Challacombe, his surgeon, discuss the former's operation for prostate cancer.

Film treatments of the Arthurian legend tell us much about the time they are made in, argues Neil Archer.

With a 1972 article about East London buildings at risk as his guide, A London Inheritance walks from Bromley by Bow to the southern tip of the Isle of Dogs.