"My view as a historian is that the empire was an extractive, exploitative, racist and violent instit..." — David Olusoga

In the case of the second world war the distorting factor is not poetry but our seemingly insatiable need to view the war through the prism of national mythology.

Because racism is not like jealousy or selfishness, it is not a primal urge or a basic instinct, it is a 400-year-old political and economic system that has infected our institutions, our culture and even our thinking.

Some of the problem with IQ tests stems from the inescapable reality that human intelligence is staggeringly complex and multifaceted.

From daycare to graduation, our education system stacks the odds against the poor. Predicted grades is just one of many hurdles that are set a little higher for those whose parents do not have the money to smooth their path in life or the inside knowledge of how the system works.