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Issue 47.23/24 is online now, featuring:

Amia Srinivasan’s LRB Winter Lecture on psychoanalysis and politics
John Lanchester on AI
@kitchenbee.bsky.social on Judy Garland
Andrew O’Hagan on Walter Lippmann
Jacqueline Rose on Netanyahu
and T.J. Clark on a kouros at the Met.

Read now at www.lrb.co.uk
London tickets for @adamshatz.bsky.social’s Winter Lecture on Friday 16 January, ‘Another Country’, are sold out, but you can still join the livestream. More details and tickets here:

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/lrb-winter...
LRB Winter Lectures | Adam Shatz: Another Country
The London Review of Books Winter Lectures for 2026
www.eventbrite.co.uk
January 12, 2026 at 9:15 PM
‘Brazilian and Argentinian beef and soybeans are beginning to be settled in renminbi. Could the US dollar lose its “exorbitant privileges” as the world’s dominant currency? Better to nip bad tendencies in the bud.’

Mimi Jiang on the Chinese perspective on Venezuela.

www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/ja...
Mimi Jiang | What they’re saying on Weibo
To try to make sense of the recent US military operation to capture the president and first lady of Venezuela, Chinese...
www.lrb.co.uk
January 12, 2026 at 8:35 PM
‘The aggression against Venezuela is emblematic of the Trump era in being both shockingly unpredictable and crudely foreshadowed, as well as being conducted under a pretext that makes little sense.’

Tony Wood in the next issue, online early.

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Tony Wood · On Venezuela
The choice of narco-trafficking as the pretext is partly motivated by a desire to skirt even the feeble murmurs that...
www.lrb.co.uk
January 12, 2026 at 7:52 PM
‘The kouros is 𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘶𝘨𝘶𝘳𝘢𝘭, meaning experimental: it is testing the implications (the possibilities) of its inherited types and techniques – testing them relentlessly, to the point of silent, almost sly, contradiction.’

T.J. Clark revisits a male statue at the Met.

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
T.J. Clark · A Kouros at the Met
It is one of the wonders of the world. You round a corner from the Met’s entrance hall and see the sculpture deep in a...
www.lrb.co.uk
January 12, 2026 at 7:15 PM
‘“What this government has done to Iran’s economy,” my passenger said, “no enemy could have accomplished. They frighten the people. So money goes into gold and coins. Then inflation rises.”’

Raha Nik-Andish reports from Iran, on the blog.

www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/ja...
Raha Nik-Andish | Driving in the Dark
This piece was written before Iran imposed an internet blackout on 8 January.Six months ago I thought about buying a car...
www.lrb.co.uk
January 12, 2026 at 6:38 PM
Reposted by London Review of Books
In the new @LRB, I wrote about Xi Jinping and his father. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Tom Stevenson · Climbing the Ziggurat: Xi Jinping’s Inheritance
China, which in the post-Cold War period was viewed as either lunch for American capital or an irredeemable dungeon, has...
www.lrb.co.uk
January 12, 2026 at 5:36 PM
‘Xi Jinping has no clear deputy, no predecessor looking over his shoulder and no obvious rivals. He is, in the historian Geremie Barmé’s phrase, “chairman of everything”.’

@tomstevenson.bsky.social on the rise of Xi Jinping, online now from the next issue.

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Tom Stevenson · Climbing the Ziggurat: Xi Jinping’s Inheritance
China, which in the post-Cold War period was viewed as either lunch for American capital or an irredeemable dungeon, has...
www.lrb.co.uk
January 12, 2026 at 5:57 PM
‘Voters for the historic duopoly mostly cite the lack of a better alternative that can plausibly win. If that sense changes, the floor will vanish beneath Labour’s feet.’

@piercepenniless.bsky.social on Labour’s complacency.

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
James Butler · Short Cuts: Labour’s Complacency
Only a terminally blithe technocrat could imagine that Reform will be punished for failing to grasp how the system works...
www.lrb.co.uk
January 12, 2026 at 5:10 PM
Tuesday 27 January: to mark what would have been Edward Said’s 90th birthday, the London Palestine Film Festival and SOAS Centre for Palestine Studies will screen ‘Edward Said: The Last Interview’, Mike Dibb’s extended conversation with Said.

Tickets & more info:

www.eventbrite.com/e/edward-sai...
January 12, 2026 at 4:35 PM
‘You may reasonably object to the orthodox Freudian picture of the unconscious. But can we doubt that there is more, much more, to our individual and collective lives than that of which we are consciously aware?’

Amia Srinivasan on developing a psychoanalytic politics:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Amia Srinivasan · The Impossible Patient: Return of the Unconscious
What has returned of late is not the unconscious itself, but the felt need, in some quarters, for the unconscious and...
www.lrb.co.uk
January 12, 2026 at 3:30 PM
‘Since 2018 Venezuela has been selling much of its oil to China in exchange for renminbi, bypassing the dollar. For the United States, renminbi settlement is a dangerous development.’

Mimi Jiang on Trump and Venezuela, as viewed from China, from the blog.

www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/ja...
Mimi Jiang | What they’re saying on Weibo
To try to make sense of the recent US military operation to capture the president and first lady of Venezuela, Chinese...
www.lrb.co.uk
January 12, 2026 at 2:47 PM
On our Close Readings subscription podcast, the first episode of ‘Nature in Crisis’ sees Meehan Crist and Peter Godfrey-Smith explore one of the truly great success stories in science writing: Rachel Carson’s ‘Silent Spring’. Listen to an extract here:

podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/n...
Nature in Crisis: ‘Silent Spring’ by Rachel Carson
Podcast Episode · Close Readings · 12/01/2026 · 1h 2m
podcasts.apple.com
January 12, 2026 at 2:15 PM
‘There is a distinction between AI safety, which is hypothetical, and AI harm, which is happening now. For one thing, much of the data on which AI models have been trained is stolen – including, as it happens, from me.’

John Lanchester on the AI bubble.

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
John Lanchester · King of Cannibal Island: Will the AI bubble burst?
Nvidia shares are the purest bet you can make on the impact of AI. The leading firms are lending money to one another in...
www.lrb.co.uk
January 12, 2026 at 1:30 PM
‘Hans Keller invented a composer, Piotr Zak, and transmitted one of his pieces. In fact, “Mobile for Tape and Percussion” was created by Keller walking around a studio striking a collection of musical instruments at random.’

Susannah Clapp on musical hoaxes.

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Susannah Clapp · Not Quite Music
For Rimsky-Korsakov, the key of A was clear pink; for Scriabin, it was green. Duke Ellington read the flight patterns of...
www.lrb.co.uk
January 12, 2026 at 12:50 PM
‘In spiritual alchemy, the real goal is not the creation of the philosopher’s stone but the realisation of spiritual enlightenment. Alchemical texts often seem to be hinting at this inner work.’

Nick Richardson on the history of alchemy.

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Nick Richardson · Puffing on the Coals: Alchemical Art
Chemical reactions reflect human dramas, which reflect celestial movements, which reflect the mind of the divine. The...
www.lrb.co.uk
January 12, 2026 at 12:10 PM
‘Editors silently rewrote passages that seemed tawdry, or just left them out; it was routine to excise Pepys’s sexual escapades while preserving his wife’s rages, which just made her seem unhinged.’

@deborahfriedell.bsky.social on Samuel Pepys’s diary.

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Deborah Friedell · Lifted Up: Pepys Deciphered
Pepys was a meticulous – some might say compulsive – record-keeper. Into his diary’s pages went social debts (who...
www.lrb.co.uk
January 12, 2026 at 11:39 AM
‘Any honest account​ of Garland as a performer has to acknowledge that part of the reason her singing speaks to us so deeply is the pain in her voice.’

@kitchenbee.bsky.social on the pleasures and paradoxes of being a ‘Judyfan’:

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Bee Wilson · Two Pins and a Lollipop: Judy Garland’s Greatness
To be a Garland fan is to have the illusion that you can save her from the wounds of the world, even as her voice and...
www.lrb.co.uk
January 12, 2026 at 10:50 AM
‘The ethnic cleansing of Palestinians is a long haul for Israel, and every little helps.’

Jeremy Harding revisits Jonathan Dimbleby and Don McCullin’s The Palestinians, originally published in 1979, and reflects on what has got worse since then:

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Jeremy Harding · Something Shameful: Britain and the Palestinians
To read The Palestinians nearly half a century later is to recognise that the many defeats the Palestinian population...
www.lrb.co.uk
January 12, 2026 at 9:15 AM
‘What is consistency, anyway? Is consistency true to life? Don’t human bodies possess “faces”, fronts and backs, foci, modes of address, kinds of invitation to attention alongside accidental, not-to-be-looked-at mechanics?’

T.J. Clark at the Met.

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
T.J. Clark · A Kouros at the Met
It is one of the wonders of the world. You round a corner from the Met’s entrance hall and see the sculpture deep in a...
www.lrb.co.uk
January 11, 2026 at 8:35 PM
‘It’s possible that the Trump administration will push what’s left of the Maduro regime to concede new elections. But it’s notable that Trump didn’t mention the word “democracy” once during his press conference on 3 January.’

Tony Wood in the next issue, online early.

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Tony Wood · On Venezuela
The choice of narco-trafficking as the pretext is partly motivated by a desire to skirt even the feeble murmurs that...
www.lrb.co.uk
January 11, 2026 at 7:20 PM
‘On 3 January, Trump boasted of having “superseded” the Monroe Doctrine: “They now call it the Donroe Doctrine.”

In reality, he has merely remodelled the Roosevelt Corollary for the age of drone warfare and social media.’

Tony Wood, online early from our next issue

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Tony Wood · On Venezuela
The choice of narco-trafficking as the pretext is partly motivated by a desire to skirt even the feeble murmurs that...
www.lrb.co.uk
January 11, 2026 at 6:51 PM
‘Individual citizens cling to their fictional environments so thoroughly, Lippmann argued, that they could be living in different worlds from those who don’t share them.’

Andrew O’Hagan on the work and theories of the liberal journalist Walter Lippmann:

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Andrew O’Hagan · Fatal Realism: Walter Lippmann’s Warning
Lippmann was called the greatest journalist of his age, but his claims as an original thinker rest on his book Public...
www.lrb.co.uk
January 11, 2026 at 6:32 PM
‘“What this government has done to Iran’s economy,” my passenger said, “no enemy could have accomplished. They frighten the people. So money goes into gold and coins. Then inflation rises.”’

Raha Nik-Andish reports from Iran, on the blog.

www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/ja...
Raha Nik-Andish | Driving in the Dark
This piece was written before Iran imposed an internet blackout on 8 January.Six months ago I thought about buying a car...
www.lrb.co.uk
January 11, 2026 at 5:50 PM
‘In Netanyahu’s twisted vision, the Jews are always on the verge of catastrophe. Either you become a killer or you die. One thing seems certain. If you accept these terms, there will never be enough corpses to go around.’

Jacqueline Rose on meeting Benjamin Netanyahu.

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Jacqueline Rose · When the Messiah Comes: When I met Netanyahu
Netanyahu is trying to absolve himself of a guilt whose reality he denies. He wants to be declared innocent without...
www.lrb.co.uk
January 11, 2026 at 5:17 PM
‘Fortress America’ is an attempt to resolve what James Baldwin called the ‘rich confusion’ of American identity. But there are other possible Americas. What can they offer?

Last few London tickets for Adam Shatz’s Winter Lecture (16/1), or join the livestream:

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/lrb-winter...
LRB Winter Lectures | Adam Shatz: Another Country
The London Review of Books Winter Lectures for 2026
www.eventbrite.co.uk
January 11, 2026 at 4:25 PM