The influenza pandemic behaved much like the conflict itself – picking out the young and fit before their time. Read by Leighton Pugh.
We need to focus on how we warn about threats and hazards. Data and forecasting can only get us so far – the critical factors are human instinct and courage.
Thucydides saw plague as an opportunity to improve the health of society. But history shows that pandemics have a way of disrupting medical and social progress. Read by Leighton Pugh.
The Covid-19 crisis has accentuated all the geopolitical fault lines of the past decade. Read by Leighton Pugh.
Thucydides saw plague as a disease of the ‘body politic’ – and an opportunity to improve the health of society. History shows that pandemics have a way of disrupting our assumptions about medical and social progress.
No event in human history has affected the entire world so quickly and comprehensively.
The influenza pandemic behaved much like the conflict itself – picking out the young and fit before their time.
The Covid-19 crisis has accentuated all the geopolitical fault lines of the past decade.
On this, the first episode of History Lessons, Mattias Hessérus speaks to the historian Tom Holland about the relationship between reality and art in the age of a pandemic.
There are clear pitfalls in writing the first draft of history but that doesn’t mean that historians should shy away from the challenges of doing so.
In many ways, Xi Jinping’s China is a state like no other. But its ambitions for global supremacy are but a new twist on a familiar problem – and are eliciting a familiar response from the rest of the world.
Fortresses, border walls and guard towers – today’s excessively guarded age is on a global scale far exceeding famous past efforts including that of Roman Emperor Hadrian and the Great Wall of China. Often unremarked on, these fascinating structures tell us a story of changing global power struggles and political might.
Blame the pandemic; blame social media, but as winter rolls around again it can feel as if we’ve forgotten how truly to celebrate. But antiquity offers us the key to re-learning how to have fun, as opposed to merely pretending we are.
Globalisation may appear to be a cornerstone of modernity but humans have always both craved and feared connection, be it social, commercial, spiritual or scientific.
In light of the recent bird-watching revival, we should revisit the life of a champion birder, Edmund Selous, who watched humans as closely as birds, and noticed the bias we bring to our understanding of the forces of nature.
The future of the Balkans is being decided by a clash between the liberal idealists and conservative realists. Whichever worldview prevails will determine the region’s geopolitical future.
Disasters result from vulnerabilities in our social fabric and a lack of preparedness for new threats. Those with the fewest options have the most to lose.
In times of global uncertainty and upheaval, many people look back to an imaginary golden age of simplicity and stability, or seek to blame a past individual or policy for current ills. Danger lies in both these coping strategies. We need to make intelligent use of history.
Arcadianism is so deep-rooted in the British national psyche. Everyone wants their own slice of Arcadia. But if everyone gets one, how much will be left?
Military force will not be enough to fix the Gulf of Guinea’s piracy problem. The roots of the crime lie on-shore, deep in the politics of oil and statehood.
Derelict bandstands are a symbol of a lost age of Victorian optimism. It’s time to recapture their zeal in improving civic life.
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