A mother passes her son from the balcony of an apartment in Taranto, Puglia ©Panos Pictures Jun 14, 2013

Made in Italy

A cultural powerhouse but riven by political discord – John Lloyd reviews ‘Story of My People’, ‘Italian Ways’ and ‘Mafia Republic’

A boy looks at a caterpillar on his arm ©Peter Marlow/Magnum Jun 7, 2013

Project parenthood

You don’t have to be a Tiger Mother to believe in pushing your children to greater things. But is there a case for letting them find their own way?

Portrait of Edmund Burke (1790) by James Northcote ©Bridgeman Art Library May 31, 2013

Burke & Sons

Edmund Burke’s admirers make the case for his greatness – but can he be claimed as the father of conservatism?

An illustration of a brain ©Heidi Cartwright, Wellcome Images May 24, 2013

Mind field

Known as the ‘psychiatric bible’, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders appears in a fifth edition this month. Talitha Stevenson explores the controversies surrounding its release

Angela Merkel leaving Berlin's Bundestag on the day of a December 2012 EU summit ©Getty May 17, 2013

Berlin or bust

Can a European Union chafing under German leadership and struggling to restore a sense of collective purpose do more to connect with its people? Tony Barber reviews ‘The Passage to Europe’, ‘The Lost Continent’ and ‘German Europe’

One of the camps established by the 1953 expedition, at 24,000ft on the Lhotse Face of Everest ©The George Lowe Collection May 10, 2013

Everest, 60 years on

In the anniversary year of Hillary and Tenzing’s conquest of Everest, a crop of new books explores what has changed in those Himalayan heights since 1953. By Carl Wilkinson

Hillary Clinton campaigning during the Democratic primary ©New York Times; Redux; eyevine May 3, 2013

‘The XX Factor: How Working Women are Creating a New Society’

Lynda Gratton reviews books by Alison Wolf, John Gerzema and Michael D’Antonio

OccupyWall Street movement ©Camera Press Apr 19, 2013

Talkin’ ’bout a revolution

Did the Occupy Wall Street movement waste its moment in the sun? Martin Sandbu reviews ‘The Democracy Project’, ‘Meme Wars’ and ‘Three Inquiries in Disobedience’

A breadline in New York City during the Great Depression, 1931 ©Getty Larry Summers Lawrence Summers Apr 12, 2013

Austerity under fire

The former US Treasury secretary turned Harvard professor reviews ‘Austerity: the History of a Dangerous Idea’ by Mark Blyth

Sylvia Plath photographed in front of Nôtre Dame, Paris, in 1956 ©Courtesy of The Lilly Library, Indiana Univer Apr 5, 2013

Who is Sylvia?

Fifty years after her death, Sylvia Plath continues to captivate writers and readers. But her role as a casus belli in the battle of the sexes has also obscured the genius of this much-mythologised poet, writes Sarah Churchwell