The “American Dream” is much better than we think, while “America First” is much worse, according to Sarah Churchwell…
India is about 30 years behind China when it comes to economic growth, and the driver going forward will be its services sector, according to Professor Lord Nicholas Stern…
The Edinburgh International Book Festival’s public programme comes to a close today after 17 days of debate, discussion and public engagement with authors and audiences from around the world and across the political and cultural spectrum…
The more that right wing media tries to demean her, the more empowered Gina Miller insists she feels. The businesswoman, who came to national prominence in 2016 when she took the British Government to the Supreme Court over its intention to implement Brexit without Parliamentary approval, was speaking today with the journalist Ruth Wishart, in a sold-out event at the Edinburgh International Book Festival…
The “clever money” in the world is “very quiet”, according to Oliver Bullough. The investigative journalist was speaking about Moneyland – his new book which ties together the Panama Papers, Trumpism and inequality to expose the “dark money”-owning super-rich – with the broadcaster Phil Harding at the Edinburgh International Book Festival…
Richard Nixon may be synonymous with Watergate, but he nevertheless helped preserve a remarkable dinosaur fossil site in New Jersey, according to Dr Steve Brusatte…
The “overt femininity” that characterised his appearance during the early success of alternative rock band Suede was his way of dealing with grief, according to Brett Anderson…
Ann Cleeves loves watching the BBC-broadcast spin-off from her Shetland novels, to find out what happens next. The author of the acclaimed books was speaking today at a sold-out event at the Edinburgh International Book Festival in the company of Glasgow-born actor Douglas Henshall, who has portrayed central character DI Jimmy Perez since 2013…
The world could well have ended, economically, in 2008, according to Adam Tooze. The Columbia University Professor of History, and author of Crashed, was speaking today with BBC Scotland’s Business and Economics Editor Douglas Fraser about the seismic global financial crisis of 2008, at a sold-out event at the Edinburgh International Book Festival…
London’s Black underclass is being used as both an ideological and literal weapon against the other 99% of Black people, according to Akala…
Although there’s much about Artificial Intelligence (AI) “to be pessimistic about”, Professor Sir Nigel Shadbolt feels “obliged” to be an optimist…
“It’s not necessarily the case that gaming addiction – if it exists – looks the same as something like drug addiction or gambling addiction,” said Pete Etchells…
The family of Pablo Picasso feels it has an obligation to protect and promote his artwork, according to Olivier Widmaier Picasso…
We will be “playing with fire when it comes to the cohesion of our society” if there is a second Brexit Referendum “in the absence of a considerable shift in public opinion,” according to ITV’s Political Editor Robert Peston…
Writing the script for Dull Margaret and seeing it blossom into a graphic novel was an “absolute delight”, according to Jim Broadbent…
Treating universities just like businesses will increase the prospect of some falling towards bankruptcy, according to Stefan Collini…
Left-wing organisation Momentum is “malice dressed as virtue,” according to former MP Alan Johnson…
The internet’s focus on shock value means that, unless there’s some kind of cultural shift, it’s unlikely that anyone will be able to repeat the influence of the American marine biologist, author, and conservationist Rachel Carson, according to Maria Popova…
The Trustees of the Edwin Morgan Trust announced the winner of the biennial Edwin Morgan Poetry Award 2018 at the Edinburgh International Book Festival this evening…
Appearing on Strictly Come Dancing completely changed the way she viewed herself, according to Susan Calman…
Donald Trump, who was among the first to create a global “brand” of architecture despite not constructing many buildings, is “a symptom of the search for brutal simplicities,” according to Richard Sennett…
By the time Christianity had taken control of the Roman Empire in the Fourth Century AD, there had been the “largest desecration of art that human history had ever seen” up to that point, according to the writer and academic Catherine Nixey…
Ali Smith doesn’t like being referred to as “Scotland’s greatest living writer”, but the description seems to have stuck at this year’s Edinburgh International Book Festival after Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s First Minister, used it during her interview with the author…
We’re currently in a culture “that insists on lying as its delivery of how we’re living,” believes the acclaimed Scottish author Ali Smith. She was speaking today with Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, during a sold-out event at the Edinburgh International Book Festival…
Chelsea Clinton’s own experiences of media “bullying” when her father, Bill, was elected as the 42nd President of the United States, makes her “feel incredibly protective of Barron Trump”—even though she disagrees “with his father on everything”…
When Tony Adams offered to return to Arsenal, the team he had captained to four league titles, as a coach in 2010, no one – especially not the then manager Arsène Wenger – got back in touch…
“Part of us is brilliant and part of us is a savage, and the sooner we understand that about our brains, the happier we’ll be,” believes Ruby Wax…
“The one thing that trumps everything to do with Iron Maiden is music,” according to the band’s frontman Bruce Dickinson…
Organisers of the Edinburgh International Book Festival today announced a new event featuring Palestinian writer Nayrouz Qarmout on Thursday 23 August…
A biography that documents the life of HRH Princess Margaret – the Queen’s sister – and a series of experimental short stories have tonight (Saturday, 18 August) won the UK’s longest-running literary awards…
“We so need a different debate about the Welfare State in Britain,” according to the self-described “social activist” Hilary Cottam…
Freedom is not about being in prison or outside of prison, according to Maria Alyokhina of Russian feminist protest punk rock group Pussy Riot…
Western culture has completely the wrong attitude to death and grief, according to the actor, writer and producer Greg Wise…
People who spend all their time in politics do not necessarily make bad politicians, but a clear problem in Britain today is that “we don’t seem to have that many politicians who are even good at doing politics,” according to Sky News political correspondent Lewis Goodall…
The dangers and challenges Western democracies face today may look and sound similar to those of the 1930s, but the cultural context is nevertheless different, especially in Western Europe and America, according to the political academics David Runciman and Yascha Mounk…
When Adam Kay left medicine in 2010, “no one left medicine. I was this glitch in the matrix. Now I can’t look on social media without seeing brilliant doctors leaving. It’s a profession in crisis.”…
Student demands for ‘safe spaces’ in universities are the “functional equivalent” of what right-wing Republicans are looking for when Donald Trump promised to build a wall on the Mexican border, according to leading sociologist Frank Furedi…
Former Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams may have a “quite quirky sense of humour” but is “political by nature”, according to the writer and broadcaster Malachi O’Doherty…
Popular crime novelist Ian Rankin confirmed that a new television adaptation of his Rebus novels is currently in development, to be written by Black Watch playwright Gregory Burke…
A 19th century pioneer of 3D, spectroscopic photography is “underestimated and underrated,” according to Dr Brian May, lead guitarist of Queen and a life-long enthusiast of the medium…
Attraction between people who are very different in terms of culture is a potent theme for the acclaimed author Leila Aboulela, but it’s not something she emphasises in her writing because she has lived “through the difficulties that come with it”…
Zindzi Mandela, the youngest daughter of Nelson and Winnie Mandela, was 15 years old the first time she met her father in prison…
Jeremy Corbyn has to change what he’s saying about anti-semitism in his party, according to former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown…
Britain has allowed itself “to become very fragile in confronting elements of the historical record that are inconvenient,” according to the writer, broadcaster and former barrister Afua Hirsch…
The only way to undo the damage of the 2016 Brexit Referendum is to hold another, according to the science writer Richard Dawkins. Dawkins was speaking today with the journalist Ruth Wishart during a sold out event at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, promoting his new collection of essays and lectures, Science in the Soul…
Organisers of the Edinburgh International Book Festival today confirmed that Palestinian writer Nayrouz Qarmout has been granted a visa to enter the UK…
Black authors and writers of colour face a greater critical expectation of writing about race, according to British Black author Diana Evans…
“In the wake of the Second World War, the international community recognised that the only way to resolve the conflict in Palestine was to create two states. I think that remains the only way to deal with it,” said the journalist and writer Ian Black…
The American activist, former actress, model, singer and author Rose McGowan views Hollywood as “a dirty town up to some dirty tricks” and she insists that her new book, Brave, is “not a tell-all”, it’s “a tell-it-as-it-is.”…
Russian intelligence’s influence on the election of Donald Trump is “definitely the biggest scandal since Watergate”, according to veteran Guardian journalist and author Luke Harding. “I think it out-Watergates Watergate.”…
Capitalism has failed in its central promise of protecting people’s incomes, according to the BBC’s Economics Editor Kamal Ahmed…
Adam Smith, author of The Wealth of Nations and generally regarded as the “father of modern economics”, would certainly have understood the reasons behind the 2008 global financial crash, according to MP Jesse Norman…
Kenya and other African nations are educating “aliens in their own countries”, according to the revered Kenyan author and playwright Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o…
Philip Pullman, known for writing strong female lead characters including Lyra Belacqua in His Dark Materials, and Sally Lockhart from The Ruby in the Smoke – believes that “to portray a strong girl, you don’t have to portray a man or a boy being weak. My boys and my men are strong as well as the women.”…
Dame Muriel Spark “changed the writing expected of women in general,” according to the internationally-acclaimed Scottish author Janice Galloway…
Jenny Niven in The List ‘Hot 100’ 
