Flesh-Eating and Fetishes: Doing Justice to the Reasonableness of Cannibalism
It sounds like the beginning of a distasteful joke. What do a petty criminal, a Swedish professor, a porn star, and a room full of auctioneers all have in common? The truth, however, is far from humorous: all of them have consumed human flesh. The subject of cannibalism rose to renewed prominence th
Playing Home: How Flatpack Furniture is Changing China
Families sit around dining tables eating out of take-away boxes; a suited businessman taps away at his laptop and rests his feet on a coffee table; an exhausted young mother lies sleeping, tucked into a duvet. Snapshots of everyday Beijing residents getting on with their lives. Except these people a
In a Silent Way
In the Tora Bora of Afghanistan, American soldiers played death metal at the entrances of caves, in a bid to prise out Al-Qaeda fighters. Sometimes they sent F-16s to fly low – earsplittingly so – over enemy camps. Or they used music for interrogation purposes – blitzed prisoners with sound, o
Mass Hysteria: A Cult of Mystery
July 1518 lives long in the memory of the people of Strasbourg. At the height of a hot summer a distraught French peasant stepped out onto the street, and spontaneously and fervently began to dance. In what must rank as one of the strangest social phenomena in history, she was soon joined by over 40
On Furlough: Taking the Greyhound to Dallas
It was an oppressively sunny afternoon in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and I was scheduled to make a 15 hour Greyhound journey from Chucky’s Convenience Store on the outskirts of town to the bus terminal in Dallas, Texas. I had been warned half-jokingly by my American friends about taking the Greyhound
Phoolan Devi: The story of India’s Bandit Queen
On 12 May 1996, a young woman from the Mallah caste wins a seat in the Indian parliament. She has no formal education, and from the age of 11 has been repeatedly raped and abused by her older husband. But she is also a dacoit, leader of a band of armed robbers, the “Beautiful Bandit” […]
Holy Land: The world’s No. 1 Jesus-themed amusement park
Nuns get free entry into Holy Land but for the rest of us it’s 70 pesos. A trio of smug-faced sisters glides past security while the less godly are crushed together in the sweaty mass of a 20-minute queue. I am wedged in the middle of a group of Mormon missionaries from Utah wearing personalised
The Shaolin: Child warrior-monks of Henan Province, China
If you stand at the foot of the imposingly vertical Mount Song in China’s Henan Province at four o’clock in the morning, you are treated to a curious sight. Dozens of tiny figures crawl down the mountain’s winding steps on their hands and feet, wearing nothing but thin cotton tunics to