Civilisation

Anti-Christian bile may be inventive, but it stems from dangerous misunderstandings

A play based on the unfinished The Watsons has a familiar setting but takes a turn into existential crisis

Which finale for Beethoven’s Op 130 should you pick— cheerful sonata-rondo or a fugue like no other?

Puy du Fou is popular, conservative, historically-themed — and successful

A spirit of openness and inquiry once characterised the great metropolises of the Muslim world. No longer

‘The intimacy draws us into Blake’s world; his other-worldly figures begin to make sense in our world and its division, hypocrisy, faithlessness and faithfulness. He plumbs our depths, the worst and the best’

‘In the US, levels of religiosity are traditionally high. But Americans aren’t somehow hard-wired to preserve their faith in a high-tech world. They are just behind the curve’

‘William Dalrymple dismantles the inadequacies of prep school history: Britain was a relatively poor, agricultural nation in 1599, while much of India was populous and rich’

‘Houllebecq’s novel Serotonin is yet another specimen of the thriving industry of déclinisme — disenchantment with neoliberal woes and political correctness’