DESTRUCTIONS AND DECONSTRUCTIONS. The First World War ; The ethics of drones ; Irredentism and associated evils ; Guns ; The Berlin-Baghdad railway ; The killing of Osama bin Laden ; The future of the world ; When China rules the world ; China and human rights ; China's games ; Opium ; A Christian nation? ; Unjust justice ; What we owe the dead ; Black poison ; Death and taxes ; Religion and education ; 'Many faiths, one truth' ; Religion and public service ; The power of the press and the press of a button ; Irrationality, immaturity, braggadocio, Putin ; Spain and Rome ; Superstition ; The advantages of atheist political leaders ; Hard-wired for God? ; The prophetess ; The new puritanism ; The global financial crisis ; Climate change ; The force of nature -- CONSTRUCTIONS AND CREATIONS. The public intellectual ; Wisdom, mind and brain ; Neurophilosophy ; The brain and history ; The triumph of science ; Science and democracy ; Making mistakes and apologising ; Does government know best? ; Beyond subsistence ; A hard choice ; Archiepiscopal ethics ; Free speech ; The care and maintenance of friends ; The book of the dead ; Darwin in Scotland ; Tocqueville on America ; Quantum Dirac ; Thucydides ; Montaigne ; Socrates ; Edmund Burke ; The unity of the good ; H.G. Wells and Mr Lewisham ; Fishing with a golden hook ; Speeches ; Sleep ; Success ; Retirement ; Happiness ; Teachers ; Education and rationality ; What is the point of the arts? ; Darkness ; The hinges of history ; The whole life : the point of the humanities ; Optimism ; Making the world a better place.