Big data illustration by Oliver Polanski ©Oliver Polanski Mar 1, 2013

Cloud atlas

For advocates of ‘big data’, the answers to many pressing problems lie in the very questions we ask online. But, asks James Harkin, will evidence from the servers of Google and its peers always send us in the right direction?

John Gray in London, 2009 ©Getty Feb 22, 2013

The demolition man

Why are so many people drawn to the restless scepticism of philosopher John Gray? Julian Baggini reviews ‘The Silence of Animals’

Leaders join hands at the 2012 ASEAN summit in Cambodia ©Camera Press Philip Stephens Feb 15, 2013

Shifting global power

The FT chief political commentator’s review of ‘The Great Convergence’, ‘The End of Power’ and ‘Intelligent Governance for the 21st Century’

EM Forster, Benjamin Britten and co-writer Eric Crozier working on ‘Billy Budd’ ©Getty Feb 8, 2013

Variations on Britten

Andrew Clark on contrasting biographies that show the tension between the composer’s public and private lives

'Entrance to the Bolan Pass from Dadur' from ‘Sketches in Afghanistan’ ©National Army Museum Feb 1, 2013

William Dalrymple’s ‘Return of a King’

A new history of the first Anglo-Afghan war from 1839 to 1842 describes the consequences of political ignorance and military folly in the region. Review by Anatol Lieven

Ruins of part of the electric fence at Auschwitz-Birkenau ©Otto Dov Kulka Jan 25, 2013

Witness to genocide

The devastating account of a survivor sent to Auschwitz as an 11-year-old boy. Simon Schama reviews ‘Landscapes of the Metropolis of Death’, by Otto Dov Kulka

‘Tenderly Flirting’, an illustration by Hugh Thomson ©Paula Byrne Jan 11, 2013

Pride and Prejudice - and politics

As Jane Austen’s best-loved novel turns 200, Paula Byrne looks at its roots in the great events of the author’s time

Gurkha soldiers in Imphal in May 1944 cutting bamboo stakes to defend their positions ©AP Dec 28, 2012

Bodley Head/FT Essay Prize runner-up

Millions of Indian soldiers served the British during the second world war, yet their experience has largely been forgotten. By Raghu Karnad

James Murray, the first editor of the Oxford English Dictionary ©Press Association Mike Skapinker Michael Skapinker Dec 21, 2012

The guardians of English

Three new histories of language and of dictionaries spell out the resistance to linguistic change

Tiananmen massacre funeral ©Magnum Dec 14, 2012

Democracy in action

Alan Ryan’s ‘On Politics’ is a triumph of erudition but focuses too heavily on the west, writes John Keane