Harriet Sergeant 
Out on the town
In the middle of last summer’s riots, Mash, a member of a South London gang I have befriended, phoned me. He was standing outside a shop that was being looted.… Read more
WEB EXCLUSIVE: These rioters are Tony Blair’s children
Nihilism and disorder have been fostered by the state On the third day of the London riots I received a telephone call from Mash, a member of a Brixton gang… Read more
Reverting to type
While I was living in Tokyo, a Japanese girl friend of mine fell in love with a British investment banker. After promising marriage, he abandoned her for an English wife… Read more
The lady from Shanghai
By the middle of the second world war, May-ling Soong was the world’s most powerful woman, at the centre of events in China’s history and its relationship with the USA.… Read more
Three men and a singer
Ian Buruma’s latest book, The China Lover, is a fictionalised take on themes previously examined in his impressive body of non-fictional work. His views on Japan, its history, films and… Read more
No mean feat
Rows of black suits filled the China Airlines flight from Beijing to Paris in September 1984. The People’s Liberation Army had ordered its entire delegation of dancers and musicians to… Read more
Much possessed by death
On the 25 November, 1970 after a failed coup d’état, the Japanese writer Yukio Mishima stuck a knife into his belly, then had his head cut off with his own… Read more
With not much help from Freud
Shortly after the end of the Cultural Revolution, I found myself in a girls’ dormitory of Beijing university. It was a small drab room of eight wooden bunks. The students… Read more
Latest blogs
- The View from 22 — Cuts, what cuts?, the rise of individualism and the green shoots of economic recovery Sebastian Payne
- Obama’s Berlin speech was a damp squib Freddy Gray
- PMQs sketch: In which Labour join the coalition Lloyd Evans
- Michael Gove kindly warns Stephen Twigg: people think you’re weak Isabel Hardman
- ‘Jihad!’ Douglas Murray
- The Tories are still flummoxed by social media Isabel Hardman
- The Supreme Court Mothballs the British Army Alex Massie
