James Buchan
James Buchan
The Honourable James Buchanis a Scottish novelist and historian...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth11 June 1954
birthday running average
There are signs that the age of petroleum has passed its zenith. Adjusted for inflation, a barrel of crude oil now sells for three times its long-run average. The large western oil companies, which cartellised the industry for much of the 20th century, are now selling more oil than they find, and are thus in the throes of liquidation.
country dog men
The rise to prominence of the Saudi novel in Arabic is the great man-bites-dog of recent world literature. Saudi Arabia is a country without a free press, where European styles and forms are distrusted and where the female half of the population became literate only in this generation.
distance grief eye
Viewed from a distance, or through the eye of the All-Knowing CEO of the Universe, the crash of 2008 followed the usual pattern. A long-lived boom driven by cheap credit, going back as far as 1982 (though subject to interruptions in the mid-1980s and 1990s, and in 2001), came to grief because of a rise in the cost of borrowing money.
new-york suffering world
The aircraft that blew up the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington conveyed several messages to the world, of which one of the least remarked is this: the Muslims of the world are suffering.
drama school views
We read too much Shakespeare at school, and view our parliamentary politics as dynastic drama, in which an impatient crown prince frets at his long subordination and begins to scheme for the throne he knows he merits, was promised and has earned.
kings leader important
What holds an Arab leader in power is a mixture of violence and prestige. Both President Assad and King Hussein were felt to have defended Arab interests against the world. That, in the end, is more important than what they wear on their head.
sky financial fireworks
Financial crises are like fireworks: they illuminate the sky even as they go pop.
technology nuclear zeppelins
Of all the failed technologies that litter the onward march of science - steam carriages, zeppelins, armoured trains - none has been so catastrophic to prosperity as the last century's attempt to generate electricity from nuclear fission.
night men self
Saudi Arabia operates according to the belief that God made young men and women so utterly and completely without self-control that they must be physically segregated every moment of the day and night.
delay nuclear should
All UK nuclear power stations should be shut down without delay.
survivor pouring sometimes
By pouring money and goods into devastated regions, foreign aid workers sometimes compound the disruption and debauch the survivors.
justice needs middle-east
Were there peace and justice in the Middle East, the Arabs would no more need their tinhorn dictators than they would their corpulent princes.
writing
We generally write best of what we ourselves have seen.
fall doubt world
The world survived the fall of the Roman empire and will no doubt outlast our own so much more splendid civilisation.