Essays

Long-form writing from leading scholars and commentators on history, statecraft, warfare, philosophy and culture.

essays

Why the samurai still matter

Nearly 700 years after their political dominance ended, Japan’s warrior elite continue to shape global culture.

Christopher Harding February 4, 2026

essays

The future of world order

The contemporary world order is poorly suited to today's dynamic, changing international system, a disparity that lies at the heart of our current sense of crisis.

Francis J. Gavin February 4, 2026

1925 poster advertising the Nuremberg transport museum.

essays

Germany, land of experiments

Germany has long been a laboratory for political experiments, good and ill.

Daniel Johnson February 3, 2026

essays

China’s century of purges

Xi Jinping’s recent purges of senior PLA officers reveal a military stripped of independence, with obedience engineered over decades of Leninist structures.

Clark Aoqi Wu January 30, 2026

essays

The Revolution within Classics

Dan‑el Padilla Peralta, a prominent American classicist, has emerged as the face of radical critique in the academy – but his approach threatens to dismantle the field rather than ..

Jaspreet Singh Boparai January 30, 2026

The production line of the Vickers-Armstrong Wellington, a twin-engined, long-range medium bomber.

essays

The fourth arm of defence

Britain’s interwar rearmament shows that military strength depends as much on industrial and economic strategy as on sheer spending.

Duncan Weldon January 28, 2026

Cartoon of Russia, published by London's Hodder and Stoughton in 1869. Credit: JJs

essays

Russia’s imperial overstretch

As a vast, economically challenged and multi-ethnic polity, the Russian state is chronically overstretched. Its struggle to establish equilibrium points towards hegemonic decline.

Daniel Peris January 21, 2026

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei waves during a ceremony marking the sixth anniversary of the death of Qassem Soleimani in Tehran, on 3 January 2026.

essays

Is the Islamic Republic on borrowed time?

The troubled history of the Arab Spring sheds light on the fate of Iran’s uprising. It explains why the Islamic Republic continues to survive waves of mass protest, yet may ultimat..

Shiraz Maher January 20, 2026

David Lloyd George and other members of the British delegation outside the Palazzo Reale at Genoa with other Allied leaders, 1922.

essays

Genoa 1922: a postwar reset that went wrong

The Conference of Genoa, 1922, promised the rebirth of a continent in ruins. Its failure offers a timely warning.

Oliver Yule-Smith January 16, 2026