Few individuals in recent memory have had a more pervasive, lasting, or pernicious influence on the humanities than Edward Said. The life of the Columbia University English professor, who helped make anti-Semitism acceptable in the academy, is the subject of Places of Mind, a new biography by Timothy Brennan. Theodore Dalrymple writes in his review:

Twenty years after Britain outlawed Hamas’s military wing, the home secretary, Priti Patel, has decided to proscribe the entire organization. Stephen Daisley applauds this decision, but observes that London does not yet seem to recognize the dangers of what Hamas represents: