John Hughes’s films re-established and updated the American dream for a new generation. His complex legacy helps us understand what went so wrong.
Donatello, one of Florence’s most distinguished sons, produced sculpture worthy of the ages.
To argue that Thatcher attacked the post-war dream is to caricature, not illuminate, her importance to British history.
Karl Marx was wrong about revolutions – in practice, they beget Caesars and Napoleons.
Amid the tumult of the 1970s, it appeared the traditional country house had gone into irreversible decline – but it was too early to write it off.
For Nietzsche, decadence is more than a propensity for sexual excess or luxurious indulgence: its existence reveals a fundamental level of human disunity.
‘Ihyou’ is a concept that runs through much of modern Japanese design – in searching for it, architects challenge the limits of form.
Despite globalisation, the nation state retains its privileged position in world politics.
The French Revolution – with its ‘left’ and ‘right’ wings of the National Assembly – created political ideology. Nothing was ever quite the same again.
As a result of President Erdogan’s embrace of two interlinked geopolitical concepts, ‘Strategic Depth’ and ‘Blue Homeland’, Turkey faces international isolation.
Russia has never quite reconciled its traditional culture of ‘joint responsibility’ with the rule of law.
The creation of samurai identity involved all classes of Japanese society, but the warriors were as much objects of mockery as reverence.
The Victorians saw Plato’s Republic as an indispensable guide to reform of the public sphere – we should follow their lead.
Over a century after its inception, the central tenets of Theosophy continue to resurface in art created today.
Even with all its data and technology, contemporary conflict fits uneasily with our definitions of modernity.
The West, more specifically the United States, with its major allies alongside it, has been chasing the ‘fun wars’ for 40 years and serially coming up empty.
The crusades, jihad, and wars in defence of intangible ideals all have their origins in a short-lived conflict in the 6th century BC.
Many of the tensions in modern capitalism can be traced back to difficulties found within Adam Smith’s writings.
Land is the silent, steady, partner in the messy realm of politics and national divides.
New technologies are not neutral tools, and their wholesale adoption could threaten future human lives.
1968 was a radical moment in Sweden’s post-war history; to deride it as a failed revolution is to miss much of its influence.
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