Über Copyright-Fragen und die Sorgen der Unterhaltungsindustrie im Zeitalter der Internet-Piraterie macht John Lanchester sich Gedanken. Die Lösung, meint er, sei einfach: "When the cassette recorder was invented, the music industry announced a moral panic over the fact that people could simply steal music from the radio, or copy it from each other. Some people did, too, but not nearly as many as the people who simply bought the stuff. That's because tapes were relatively cheap, and it was more of a shag to steal, copy or bootleg them than it was to buy them. It was the same with videos. The entertainment business needs to make it easier, and more convenient, to pay for this stuff than it is to steal it. Until they do that, the illegal exchange of copyrighted material over the Internet will continue to be pervasive, out of control and oh so criminal."

Rita Giacaman schickt einen Lagebericht aus Ramallah. "On 4 April, the Ministry of Education issued an appeal to the world community, indicating that the previous day more than thirty Israeli tanks forced an entry into the Ministry headquarters in Ramallah ... the Ministry's computer Net servers were stolen, along with many floppy disks, CDs, files, dossiers and all sorts of other documents ... All records were taken or destroyed, even records of official transcripts that have been laboriously collected over years, making it impossible now to issue or certify student documents and transcripts." Die Zerstörung, Verwüstung und Plünderung von Rundfunkstationen, Gesundheits- und Bildungseinrichtungen, so Giacaman, habe nichts mehr zu tun mit einem Sicherheitsbedürfnis Israels, sondern ziele geradewegs auf die Annihilation alles Palästinischen.

Richard Poirier sucht nach Hinweisen auf das schriftstellerische Genie in Henry James' Kindheitserinnerungen, Jenny Diski stellt eine Biografie über die Witwe und Nachlassverwalterin George Orwells vor, und Steven Shapin stellt die Autobiografie des Atomwissenschaftlers, "nuclear-maniacs" und Erzfeindes Robert Oppenheimers, Edward Teller (mehr hier) vor. .

In einem Essay versucht Charles Nicholl eine Annäherung an eine "real global icon", das berühmteste Gemälder der Welt: Leonardo da Vincis Mona Lisa. Nicholl weiß nicht nur, dass das Bild zu Leonardos Zeit für nur 550 Lire gehandelt wurde, in Donald Sassoons kultureller und historischer Geschichte des Bildes ("Mona Lisa. The History of the World's Most Famous Painting"), findet er auch einen entscheidenden, wenn auch eher profanen Grund für die Berühmtheit der lächelnden Dame: "the fact that the painting came to France with Leonardo in 1516, rather than staying in Italy, and that it ended up in the Louvre as a result. Why did gorgeous Leonardo ladies like Cecilia Gallerani and Ginevra de' Benci (both seemingly sexier than the sallow, broad-browed Gioconda) not catch the collective imagination as she did? One answer is that during the 19th century - the key period in her route to celebrity, according to Sassoon - the Gioconda was drawing the crowds in Paris, while Cecilia and Ginevra were languishing in private collections in Krakow and Liechtenstein."

Weiteres: R.W. Johnson stellt Joseph Persicos Band über "Roosevelt's Secret War" vor, Andy Beckett bespricht ein Buch, das erklärt, wie die Antiglobalisierungsbewegung unsere sozialen Demokratien herausfordert ("The Protest Ethic" von John Lloyd), und Terry Castle bewegt sich auf den Spuren ihres Großonkels über die Schlachtfelder des Ersten Weltkriegs.

Der Historiker Perry Anderson schreibt eine kleine Geschichte der politischen Kultur Italiens (beileibe keine rühmliche) und glaubt, einen Schlüssel zu ihrem genetischen Code entdeckt zu haben. "Critical to it is a notion that has no corresponding term in other European languages: spregiudicato. Literally, this just means 'unprejudiced' - a term of praise in Italy, as it is elsewhere ... In the course of the 19th century, however, the word came to acquire a second meaning: 'lack of scruples, want of restraint, effrontery'. Today - this is the crucial point - the two meanings have virtually fused ... The connotation of spregiudicato is now generally laudatory, even when its referent is the second rather than the first. The tacit, everyday force of the term becomes: 'aren't scruples merely prejudices?' ... Understood in this sense, spregiudicatezza appears a common denominator of the most variegated figures and forces of the Italian scene. It does not abolish the political differences between them, as if they were indistinguishable in cynicism, but rather bathes them in a general ether."

Das Buch "Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes how the Media Distort the News" ist das J'accuse des CBS-Mitarbeiters Bernard Goldberg gegen eine vermeintlich linkslastige US-Presse und in den Staaten ein Bestseller. Zu Unrecht, behauptet Thomas Frank vom Chicagoer Baffler-Magazine in der LRB. "The book is a laundry list of petty, unconnected objections to what Goldberg has seen on TV over the years ... written in the fulminating language of right-wing populism." Mit anderen Worten: Der Mann sieht Gespenster, wenn er meint, die Linke kontrolliere Amerikas Nachrichtenredaktionen.

Außerdem: Jeremy Harding porträtiert den späten Jonas Savimbi, Führer der Unita-Rebellen in Angola. Und Besprechungen widmen sich zwei Büchern über Salz, Bernard Wassersteins "Divided Jerusalem: The Struggle for the Holy City" sowie Romanen von Alain Robbe-Grillet ("La Reprise") und Bernhard Schlink ("Flights of Love").

Ein hübsch abseitiges Thema hat sich Peter Campbell ausgesucht: Warum, fragt er, braucht es oft Wochen oder gar Monate, um eine gewöhnliche Rolltreppe zu reparieren? Die Antwort ist so knapp wie einleuchtend: "Escalators are big, complicated machines packed into tight shafts and there aren't many hours when you can work on them." Bis Campbell damit rausrückt aber, hat er nicht bloß eine kleine Phänomenologie dieses modernen Klassikers der Beförderungsmittel abgeliefert, sondern auch die ein oder andre mit ihm verbundene Anekdote: "In the early days people had to be persuaded to get on at all. A one-legged man, 'Bumper' Harris, was hired to ride for a whole day on the first installation - it was at Earls Court - to show how easy it was. Some people were sceptical (how had he lost his leg?) but others broke their journey there just to ride up and down."

Tom Vanderbilt untersucht den totalen Überwachungsstaat anhand von James Bamfords investigativer Studie "Body of Secrets". Obgleich er nach der Lektüre des (übrigens vor 09/11 erschienenen) Buches keine Zweifel mehr hat, dass die amerikanische National Security Agency (NSA) über Mittel verfügte, die Attacken vom 11. September vorauszusehen - "for the Agency, which, as Bamford reminds us, is larger than the FBI and CIA combined (and has office space equivalent to 11 World Trade Centers), has long been present at epochal events, a headphones-wearing Forrest Gump lurking at the margins of history" -, hält er "total surveillance" dennoch mehr für ein Schreckgespenst: "Big Brother may be everywhere, but he's not watching (at best he's desperately channel surfing)."

Stephan Burt schließlich zeigt den Dichter Williams Carlos Williams als radikalen Modernen: "The Hurricane": The tree lay down / on the garage roof / and stretched, You / have your heaven, / it said, go to it. "A snapshot of Williams's suburbs, an emblem for secularists, and a demonstration of how it sounds (curt, confident) to take disaster in one's stride."