Reaching for Utopia brings together insightful essays and profiles chronicling the remarkable political and cultural transformations of the last decade - from the fall of Gordon Brown, to the rise of Corbyn and the radical left, to Brexit. Cowley is fascinated by the men and women who are creating the history of our era as well as those who document it. He has met and interviewed nearly all the major political players shaping and changing the way we live today. The book features fascinating, wide-ranging narrative profiles of Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Ed Miliband, Jeremy Corbyn, Alex Salmond, Nigel Farage, David Cameron, George Osborne and Theresa May. Cowley is unusual in having access to party leaders and prime ministers on both the left and right. The book also features penetrating essays on writers such as George Orwell, John le Carre, Kazuo Insiguro, and Ian McEwan, personal essays, an investigation into the so-called Brexit Murder, and a striking conversation with the political philosopher Michael Sandel. Cowley is one of the most influential journalists in Britain. He is notable for being both a political and literary journalist. And he also writes about sport, especially football, and covered the 2006 World Cup in Germany for the Observer. He has been widely credited with transforming the fortunes of the New Statesman, which in 2017 has recorded its highest print circulation for nearly 40 years as well as becoming a major digital title with rapidly growing online profile. According to the European Press Prize, 'Cowley has succeeded in revitalising the New Statesman and re-establishing its position as an influential political and cultural weekly. He has given the New Statesman an edge and a relevance to current affairs it hasn't had for years.' In 2017, at the British Society of Magazine Editors awards, Cowley won the editor of the year award (politics and current affairs) for the third time. In 2018, he launched New Statesman America.

A Daily Telegraph Book of the Year 2022 'I can't tell you how refreshing it is in these polarised times to read a book on politics that doesn't have an axe to grind . . . an essential read.' The Sunday Times 'Subtle, sophisticated . . . compellingly told . . . This is a gentle and intelligent book, refreshingly unpolemical and reflective.' Observer Book of the Week Jason Cowley, editor-in-chief of the New Statesman, examines contemporary England through a handful of the key news stories from recent times to reveal what they tell us about the state of the nation and to answer the question Who Are We Now? Spanning the years since the election of Tony Blair's New Labour government to the aftermath of the Covid pandemic, the book investigates how England has changed and how those changes have affected us. Cowley weaves together the seemingly disparate stories of the Chinese cockle-pickers who drowned in Morecambe Bay, the East End Imam who was tested during a summer of terror, the pensioner who campaigned against the closure of her GP's surgery and Gareth Southgate's transformation of English football culture. And in doing so, Cowley shows the common threads that unite them, whether it is attitudes to class, nation, identity, belonging, immigration, or religion. He also examines the so-called Brexit murder in Harlow, the haunting repatriation of the fallen in the Iraq and Afghan wars through Wootton Bassett, the Lancashire woman who took on Gordon Brown, and the flight of the Bethnal Green girls to Islamic State, fleshing out the headlines with the very human stories behind them. Through these vivid and often moving stories, Cowley offers a clear and compassionate analysis of how and why England became so divided and the United Kingdom so fragmented, and how we got to this cultural and political crossroads. Most importantly, he also shows us the many ways in which there is genuine hope for the future.

'I can't tell you how refreshing it is in these polarised times to read a book on politics that doesn't have an axe to grind . . . an essential read.' - The Sunday Times 'Subtle, sophisticated . . . compellingly told . . . This is a gentle and intelligent book, refreshingly unpolemical and reflective.' - Observer Book of the Week Jason Cowley, editor-in-chief of the New Statesman, examines contemporary England through a handful of the key news stories from recent times to reveal what they tell us about the state of the nation and to answer the question Who Are We Now? Spanning the years since the election of Tony Blair's New Labour government to the aftermath of the Covid pandemic, the book investigates how England has changed and how those changes have affected us. Cowley weaves together the seemingly disparate stories of the Chinese cockle-pickers who drowned in Morecambe Bay, the East End Imam who was tested during a summer of terror, the pensioner who campaigned against the closure of her GP's surgery and Gareth Southgate's transformation of English football culture. And in doing so, Cowley shows the common threads that unite them, whether it is attitudes to class, nation, identity, belonging, immigration, or religion. He also examines the so-called Brexit murder in Harlow, the haunting repatriation of the fallen in the Iraq and Afghan wars through Wootton Bassett, the Lancashire woman who took on Gordon Brown, and the flight of the Bethnal Green girls to Islamic State, fleshing out the headlines with the very human stories behind them. Through these vivid and often moving stories, Cowley offers a clear and compassionate analysis of how and why England became so divided and the United Kingdom so fragmented, and how we got to this cultural and political crossroads. Most importantly, he also shows us the many ways in which there is genuine hope for the future.

Features fiction, reportage, memoir and photography. This issue includes a dispatch from inside war-torn Algeria.

Animal Farm is George Orwell’s brilliant political satire and allegorical fable about the corrupting effects of power. Published in 1945 it is, to this day, one of the most famous and influential works of fiction ever written.

Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket-sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition features an introduction by journalist and writer Jason Cowley.

When the old Major, a highly respected white boar, gathers his fellow farm animals to preach about freedom, rebellion and the evils of man, he incites a revolution that has been brewing for years. The animals drive out their drunken farmer, Mr Jones and create their own society which promises equality for all. Two scheming pigs, Napoleon and Snowball, appoint themselves leaders and what begins as a supposedly equalitarian community descends into an increasingly violent and hierarchical society permeated by lies and corruption.

As long as people have been writing, they have been writing about nature. But nature - as we know it - is changing. Economic migration, overpopulation and - most significantly - climate change are shaping the natural world into something unfamiliar. Instead of providing a respite from the urban landscape, the natural world now reflects our mistakes; our abuse; our politics. As our conception and experience of nature changes, so too does the way we write about it. "Granta 102" will be a seminal collection, addressing lost worlds, vanishing species, the race for control of the Arctic and the popularisation of man-made art intended to replicate the aesthetic experiences we once found in the wild. The contributors to this book include Robert Macfarlane, Jonathan Raban, Richard Mabey, Geoff Dyer, Nadine Gordimer, and Isabel Hilton.

Reinvigorated and redesigned, "Granta" has a new editor and a new website. But it's not all change: we will still continue to publish the world's finest writers of fiction, memoir and reportage, in an elegant and collectable paperback book. In "Granta 101", there is new fiction from celebrated writers Annie Proulx, Rick Moody and Joshua Ferris. Plus Andrew Hussey on the Paris Intifada, Robert Macfarlane reports from blitzed Beijing, Tim Lott investigates a macabre murder, Xan Rice on a missing plane; a lost father and a son's search, Janice Galloway: 'My mother thought I was the menopause', Owen Sheers on the legacy of British H-bomb tests, Douglas Coupland on thinking visually, plus: Hilary Mantel, Lavinia Greenlaw, Robin Robertson, Ruth Franklin, Nick Danziger, Akash Kapur, Louise Dean and Gautier Deblonde's photographs from the Arctic.

In Granta 103, look out for a remarkable investigation into the rise of the British jihad by Richard Watson; Binyavanga Wainaina on what it means to be Kenyan after the ravages of ethnic cleansing; Isabel Hilton in China and Tibet; Philip Delves Broughton on the trail of rogue trader Jerome Kerviel; and Caleb Crain on the future of Fresh Kills, once America's largest landfill, now a repository of much of the September 11 wreckage and a graveyard for many of the unidentified dead. Web exclusives on www.granta.com include interviews with Jonathan Raban, Lorrie Moore, Robert Macfarlane and others; Zimbabwean writer Petina Gappah on her country in crisis; short films and audio discussions with Granta contributors; original fiction by emerging writers in the New Voices series; and news, blogs, photography, and highlights from the archive, updated daily.