- Columnist and Washington Bureau Chief, The Economist (from 1995)
- Fifty-Pound Fellow, All Souls College (from 1988 to 1995)
- Prize Fellow, All Souls College (from 1980 to 1987)
- Undergraduate, Balliol College, Oxford (from 1977 to 1980)
- Modern America, meritocracy, talent wars, God
- Surveys on entrepreneurship, talent, telecommunications, education, multinational companies, management consultancy and American foreign policy
- (with John Micklethwait) God is Back: How the Global Revival of Faith is Changing the World (Penguin, 2009)
- (with John Micklethwait), The Company: A Short History of a Revolutionary Idea (Modern Library, 2005)
- (with John Micklethwait) The Right Nation: Conservative Power in America (Penguin, 2004)
- (with John Micklethwait) A Future Perfect: The Promise and Peril of Globalization (Heinemann, 2000)
- The Witch Doctors: Making Sense of the Management Gurus (Time Books, 1996)
- Measuring the Mind: Education and Psychology in England 1880–1990 (CUP, 1994)