Programme Details

Andrew Graham-Dixon reviews the first Jasper Johns exhibition in the UK for almost 30 years, and political theorist Michael Walzer on his new book Arguing About War 

One of the forerunners of Pop Art, the American artist Jasper Johns may be best known for his iconic flag paintings. But in the past twenty years his work has become more autobiographical, as a new exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art shows. The critic Andrew Graham-Dixon reviews the first Johns show in the UK for almost thirty years.

In 1977, the political philosopher Michael Walzer published an influential book on the morality of war, in which he argued that while killing is wrong, some conflicts are "just". But twenty seven years later, in the wake of the US-led action in Afghanistan and Iraq - not to mention the conflicts in Kosovo , Bosnia and Rwanda - does his theory still hold? His new book, Arguing About War , raises some doubts, as he tells Isabel Hilton .

And the film writer Paul Ryan pays tribute to his friend and colleague, the influential director Lindsay Anderson - whose most famous work includes This Sporting Life and If... Anderson, one of the key figures in the "Free Cinema" movement of the 1950s, died 10 years ago this August. 

Past Things and Present: Jasper Johns since 1983 is at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh until 19 th September 2004 - part of the gallery's Year of American Art

Arguing About War by Michael Walzer is published by Yale University Press, price £16.99

This year's Edinburgh International Film Festival will feature a tribute to Lindsay Anderson, including a performance from Malcolm McDowell, the star of If... , on August 23 rd at the Traverse Theatre. Paul Ryan's edition of Anderson 's memoirs will be published later this year.