London Review of Books

Issue 47.06 is now online, featuring: Perry Anderson on neoliberalism Tessa Hadley on Mavis Gallant Judith Butler on Trump’s anti-trans orders Long Ling on Beijing’s commuter city Deborah Friedell on Elon Musk and a cover by Jon McNaught. Read online at lrb.co.uk

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‘Musk offered to do to America just what he’d done for Twitter.’ Deborah Friedell on Elon Musk: lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/…

‘Twitter remains for now by some way the market-leader, but its use-value is fast vanishing, as even the more sluggish old-school news and comment organisations recognise.’ Mark Sinker (@HiddenLandsc8pe) on Bluesky, from December: lrb.co.uk/blog/2024/dece…

‘Withdrawing basic support from people who are not considered sufficiently ill or disabled risks making them more ill or disabled.’ Arianne Shahvisi on welfare cuts, from the blog: lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/marc…

‘It’s not clear what message of common endeavour, if any, Starmer’s government is trying to broadcast. A commitment to growth above all else is inconsistent with slashing immigration.’ Daniel Trilling (@trillingual) on Labour’s immigration rhetoric: lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/…

‘One very simple way to address a language model’s deficiencies in problem-solving is to express problems not as exercises in reasoning but in the generation of language.’ Paul Taylor (@paul3548) on DeepSeek and problem-solving AI: lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/…

This, by @danielsoar in the @LRB, is one of the best essays on The Brothers Karamazov I’ve ever read: lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/…

‘In nearly thirty years of conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo, over six million people have been killed and more than seven million have been displaced.’ Issa Sikiti da Silva on disintegration in the DRC, from the blog: lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/marc…

‘Before she reached her twenties, Austen imagined the wildest range of disreputable lives for her heroines and indulged her own resistance to conventionality. It isn’t hard to understand why.’ Freya Johnston on Jane Austen, juvenilia and marriage: lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/…

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‘Resentment at not being treated as an equal hasn’t gone away just because the Soviet Union is no more. Vladimir Putin took office in 2000 denouncing US “tutelage” and double standards.’ Sheila Fitzpatrick on Russia in the Cold War: lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/…

‘Meloni and her lieutenants have tried to claim large chunks of traditional Italian culture: her former culture minister, Gennaro Sangiuliano, hailed Dante as the father of right-wing thought.’ Jan-Werner Müller on Giorgia Meloni and the Italian right: lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/…

‘This government, like the last one, seems unable to put curiosity about causation before its impulse to cruelty.’ Arianne Shahvisi on the cuts to personal independence payments, from the blog: lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/marc…

‘A hare can be a prince. Or a hare can be a hare. The only rule of a tale is that everything gets used, even apparently superfluous details – though you’re allowed entirely superfluous ogres because ogres are cool.’ Colin Burrow on the Grimms’ folk tales: lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/…

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‘Without at least a twinge of belief, blasphemy turns into kitsch.’ Adam Mars-Jones on the French writer Dominique Fernandez, whose novels and memoir explore family, religion and his sexuality: lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/…

‘There’s nothing surprising about Trump’s attack on the universities, or on the liberal law firms that he also despises. What is shocking is the ease with which his attack has so far succeeded.’ Adam Shatz on Columbia’s capitulation, from the blog: lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/marc…