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221 results

Russian history rhymes — from Soviet collapse to Putin’s folly

essays

A ship without a captain — Collapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union by Vladislav Zubok review

book-review

Russia in 2020: alternative scenarios of the near future

essays

The triumph of the Motherland

essays

The Eurasian Century, Part IV: Cold War

essays

Myths and realities of Putinism and NATO expansion

essays

Outside in, inside out: Russia as an empire on the periphery

essays

Gorbachev did not end the Cold War alone — the West won

notebook

When banks fail

notebook

America’s Afghan reckoning

notebook

Russia: a short history of failed coups

notebook

A real Russian heart: Aleksandr Dugin, Vladimir Putin and the dangerous new Russian ideology

essays

How Russia and Iran have united in antipathy towards the West

essays

Russia and the West – the path not taken

essays

Decline in three dimensions

essays

The swift death of Gorbachev’s USSR set Russia on a path to chaos

essays

Soviet socialism was no good at groceries

notebook

Great Books: William Golding’s The Spire

book-review

The price of freedom

essays

Finance without trust: a perilous business

notebook

A Cold War with Chinese characteristics

essays

Bad history — why the Treaty of Versailles is an imperfect guide to future Russia-West relations

notebook

Nehemiah Wallington – Puritan chronicler had far less fun than Pepys

portraits

A little history of the modern Middle East

essays

Empire and development in First Millennium Europe

essays

Challenging the ‘Great Reset’ theory of pandemics

essays

Alexander Helphand — impresario of revolutionary disaster who smoothed Lenin’s return to Russia

portraits

What does the future of evolution look like?

essays

The decay and renewal of the American constitutional order

essays

The new Warsaw Pact

essays

Everything is not really okay in Afghanistan

book-review

Beware the Ides of August

essays

The timely return of Henry Clay

notebook

The unmaking of Julius Caesar

book-review

EI Weekly Listen — Rolf Ekéus on how to end wars

podcasts

Meritocracy v the people

essays

Solzhenitsyn, Putin and the historical myth-making that drives Russian imperialism

notebook

What Putin learnt from NATO’s 1999 intervention in Kosovo

notebook

The shifting fortunes of IS-Khorasan

book-review

Jacques Rueff’s quest for monetary order

essays

Modern France and the ghosts of the past

essays

Ukraine on the move: a century of migration

essays

Unipolar America: another imperial delusion ends

essays

To avoid a dictatorship of scholars

essays

The march of the sovereign individuals

notebook

Cubans are losing their fear

notebook

The old republic of Europe

essays

Fritz Mannheimer – stockbroker of peace

portraits

Geopolitics and the Mongol Empire

essays

Napoleonic Europe: how the Emperor built a continent

essays

Towards a Westphalia for the Middle East

essays

History while it’s still smoking

essays

Putin bets the Russia house on the Donbas rustbelt

essays

Confucius, competition and modern China’s misuse of meritocracy

essays

Inside the Collective Unconscious

essays

When did sexual decadence lose its association with social decline?

essays

Future proof

essays

Learning from the big, bold 1990s debates over the post-Cold War world

notebook

Putin’s Game: How did so many in the West get Russia so wrong?

essays

Counting the cost of the 1918-19 pandemic

essays

The world that saltpetre built

essays

Will Russia be happy as China’s junior partner?

notebook

As the Arctic thaws, are we able to keep its peace?

essays

Kazakhstan’s Russia problem

notebook

Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto-gold turned to dust

notebook

How the GDR fell in love with the West

essays

The Kremlin has its eyes on Gagauzia

notebook

Capitalism’s magic ingredient is confidence

notebook

A most rebellious territory

essays

Russia’s unbearable frontline burden

notebook

An endless dialogue between past and present

essays

What the Romans did for the US

essays

Vienna’s vapour trail

book-review

Russia, America and the roads not taken

essays

Daniel Patrick Moynihan: Warrior of the liberal centre

portraits

Russia: Nation of floods

notebook

From broken windows to bulldozers

essays

God is back

essays

The end of history ends

essays

The ancient roots of the modern holy war

essays

Yugoslavia and the ghosts of nationalism

notebook

Machiavelli and the benefits of civil strife

essays

The war against printing

essays

Knowing Russia was going to invade Ukraine was not enough

notebook

Khorloogiin Choibalsan — Stalin of the steppe

portraits

Akinpelu Obisesan — a gentleman diarist in colonial Africa

portraits

The world that Vasco da Gama built

essays

Basil Liddell Hart and the Art of Peace

portraits

Can warfare ever be considered modern?

essays

The Nation in Arms: Myth or reality?

essays

Why the idea of Carthage survived Roman conquest

essays

The transformation of Mitteleuropa

essays

How war created the nation state and yet could destroy it

essays

This crisis has the capacity to be apocalyptic

essays

The polymath in the age of specialisation

essays

Thucydides was a Realist

essays

Christianity in a cold climate – Jesuit encounters with Japan

essays

Rethinking the Meiji Restoration

essays

Was Horace a town or a country mouse?

notebook

Nafissa Sid Cara — an ambiguous pioneer for Muslim women

portraits

Duality, determinism and demography: The Greeks on geopolitics

essays

Chiang Ching-kuo — dictator or democrat?

portraits

Time running out in China’s waiting game — The Long Game: China’s Grand Strategy to Displace American Order by Rush Doshi review

book-review

Margaret Thatcher – the fall, thirty years on

essays

Shaping society — The Making of Our Urban Landscape by Geoffrey Tyack review

book-review

Meet the Zoomer generation

essays

Waugh’s war

notebook

Inside the disinformation forever war

essays

How Arcadia was won and lost and found again

essays

Globalisation — lessons from George Canning on how to remake trade

essays

Ukraine and Russia: how closeness turned into war

essays

Reassessing Christian history

essays

A world of nations and states is here to stay

essays

Why Jihadists write poetry

essays

Jaan Kross — a writer’s route to happiness

portraits

The tragic tradition of Ukraine’s Sviatohirsk Lavra

notebook

The Soviet military was a hollow colossus

essays

How US policy failure post-9/11 undermined international order

essays

Where has ‘the good life’ gone?

essays

Dunwich’s very English apocalypse

notebook

The problem of power in Russia

essays

Why do politicians get energy policy wrong?

essays

Survival lessons from Ancient Rome

essays

Continuity Thatcher: rescuing a complex leader from historical cliché

essays

The Eurasian Century, Part II: The Great Black Tornado

essays

Nijinsky’s last dance

notebook

Is energy the god of progress?

notebook

Geopolitics of a pandemic

essays

The forgotten lessons of First World War strategy

essays

When disaster strikes

essays

Crisis, settlement, or containment — what is to be done on Russia?

essays

Despotism or anarchy? — Promised Lands: The British and the Ottoman Middle East by Jonathan Parry review

book-review

Rethinking geopolitics

essays

Imperial Germany – mighty aristocracy or modern meritocracy?

notebook

What is the purpose of existence?

essays

The Queen, Stoicism and the defence of the Faith

notebook

The geopolitics and grand strategy of Alfred Thayer Mahan

essays

Rousseau and the barbarity of education

essays

The 1920 Battle for Ukraine — a warning from the past

notebook

Gustav Stresemann — The man who almost saved the world

portraits

Frederic Prokosch — freedom in fiction

portraits

James Flint – a sino-pioneer ahead of his time

portraits

Fighting in the shadows

essays

From miracles to massacres – Japan’s tumultuous 20th century

essays

2020: Putting our pandemic in perspective

essays

Mikhail Gorbachev gave Russia a chance

essays

The Pacific Century is here — but not as advertised

notebook

Bond or Blofeld: war, espionage and secrecy in the twenty-first century

essays

The economy and the paradox of technology

essays

The truth shall set us free

essays

Digital revolution: a splash in the cognitive space?

essays

How the individual invented the modern West

essays

Brick is best

notebook

Great Books: The Sorrows of Satan by Marie Corelli

book-review

Great Books: I Viceré by Federico De Roberto

book-review

A very medieval cost of living crisis

notebook

Books of the Year

book-review

Information war does not exist

essays

Kon Satoshi — animator of unmatched talent

portraits

Breaking the nuclear taboo

essays

Reclaiming Christian freedom for the modern age

essays

A Year in Ideas

essays

In defence of shareholder democracy

essays

Napoleon’s trouble on the home front

notebook

What does Xi Jinping really think?

essays

Is there hope for Russia after Putin?

essays

The Arab Awakening: when the dream met reality

essays

Who created The Paintings for the Temple?

essays

How a Second Cold War could have been averted

essays

José Saramago was the master of reinvention

notebook

Bengal Opium: a study in continuity

essays

Irina Ratushinskaya — Soviet dissident who fought the good fight

portraits

NATO is back

notebook

The White Revolutionaries

essays

How 1970s California created the modern world

essays

The Anonymous Canon

notebook

Cyprian Ekwensi: Lagos life in the raw

portraits

Karel Čapek’s robots took on a life of their own

notebook

In Defence of the Literary Critic

book-review

China-US rivalry risks dividing the EU

essays

What Richard Wagner can tell us about the Wagner Group

notebook

Milan Kundera dreamt in Czech

notebook

Lessons for NATO from Ancient Greece’s Delian League

notebook

An Oceanic Order for the Twenty-First Century

essays

Russian fortifications present an old problem for Ukraine

essays

An ode to the ODNB

notebook

In pursuit of greatness: from Troy to Westminster

essays

Democracy is no longer a ‘hurray-word’ in West Africa

notebook

Three victories and a defeat

essays

The mythical Burma of Maurice Collis

notebook

Hegel’s philosophy of history

book-review

The enduring secret to Cyrus the Great’s success

essays

The ins and outs of the European project

book-review

Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy revisited

essays

Ukraine and the West: an alliance by proxy

notebook

Lucretius’ life-saving poem

essays

How to make a nation

book-review

Contradictions at the heart of an expanding Europe

essays

How Israel lost sight of its enemies

notebook

Israel’s new Yom Kippur

essays

Canada’s Pacific railway: an iron spine for a paper nation

book-review

Commemorating Portugal’s ambiguous revolution

notebook

Ferdinand’s second life was the sweetest

notebook

Explaining the Golden Era

notebook

Armenia’s existential moment

essays

The world in 2024

essays

Kissinger: the ultimate realist

essays

The long fall of the Slavic nation

essays

Writing in the New Year

notebook

Grey zones and dark tourism in Europe’s hinterlands

essays

Britain’s energy transition in the shadow of the 1970s

essays

Fearing Russia’s futures

essays

Sigmar Hillelson — the German Jewish pioneer behind the BBC’s Arabic broadcasts

portraits

Why Putin is haunted by the spectre of Polish power

essays

Russia’s long imperial moment

notebook

A deep history of Canadian populism

essays

My crush on cars

notebook

The sublime hubris of Tropical Modernism

book-review

A wild Winterreise

book-review

There are few winners in the wars for the Middle East

book-review

Worldview — what is the future of the West?

podcasts