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Empty highway in the direction of Munich on a car-free Sunday during the oil crisis.
essays

The wrong prescription for liberal democracy’s ills

  • September 25, 2026
  • Marc Levinson
Mezzotint of Robert Molesworth. Credit: Eagen Archive
portraits

Robert Molesworth, denouncer of Danish tyranny

  • September 25, 2026
  • Felice Basbøll
An aerial photograph of Hiroshima, Japan, shortly after the atomic bomb was dropped in 1945. Credit: World History Archive
Review

Truman’s impossible atomic calculus

  • September 24, 2026
  • David Vaiani
podcasts

Space and the new clash of civilisations

  • September 24, 2026
  • Engelsberg Ideas
The Red Army entering Estonia.
notebook

What if the Baltic states had resisted Stalin?

  • September 24, 2026
  • Gordon F. Sander
··· Original Film Title: I, CLAUDIUS-TV. English Title: I, CLAUDIUS-TV. Film Director: HERBERT WISE. Year: 1976. Stars: SIAN PHILLIPS
notebook

The rise and fall of Rome’s first family

  • September 23, 2026
  • Paul Lay
The cover of John Coltrane's 'Blue Train'.
notebook

Coltrane, the acceptable face of the avant-garde

  • September 23, 2026
  • Max Mitchell
A stamp printed by Russian 2009 showing the nuclear icebreaker, Lenin.
essays

SMRs: a short history of a nuclear pipe dream

  • September 23, 2026
  • Paul Josephson
The first meeting of the Strategic Political and Defense Committee, established under the Mecca Agreement, on 31 August, 2026.
notebook

The Middle East’s coalitions of convenience

  • September 22, 2026
  • Ibrahim Al-Marashi and Tanya Goudsouzian
Voting in St Petersburg, Russia.
notebook

The absurd theatre of Russia’s choice-free election

  • September 22, 2026
  • Egor Sokolov
An abandoned Russian-made T-62 tank in the desert in front of burning oil wells in Kuwait, in February-March 1991.
Review

How the Middle East boiled over

  • September 21, 2026
  • James Barr
Marcel Proust.
notebook

Proust’s quarrel with ‘accessible’ art

  • September 21, 2026
  • Lola Salem

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