Essays Archive

British soldiers going 'over the top' in the First World War.

essays

Why wars keep happening

A market-based approach to conflict misses essential elements of why, despite interdependence and the emergence of international norms, wars that make little rational sense continu..

Francis J. Gavin June 17, 2024

An archivist checks books and documents at the Iraq National Library and Archives in Baghdad.

essays

The Saddam files and the battle for Iraqi history

During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the American military seized millions of pages of secret documents from Saddam Hussein's regime, setting off an ongoing battle for the control of ..

Samuel Helfont June 11, 2024

A large Sèvres presentation plate celebrating Nazism's alleged debt to Charlemagne.

essays

How the Nazis weaponised Charlemagne

Nazi historiographers sought to present Adolf Hitler as the heir to Charlemagne. They are neither the first, nor the last, to mythologise Charlemagne and attempt to shape his legac..

Samuel Rubinstein June 10, 2024

Singapore harbour with the city in the background.

essays

The Singapore way

If Britain is to reckon with its present economic sickness, it will require a cultural transformation of an epic scale. The triumph of Singapore in the 20th century may offer a gui..

James Vitali June 7, 2024

'The Meeting of General Klüke von Klügenau and Imam Shamil in 1837', 1849. The artist was Grigory Gagarin.

essays

How Tolstoy immortalised Russia’s Caucasus forever war

Tolstoy’s novella Hadji Murat resonates with enduring themes of betrayal, collaboration and resistance in Russia's wars in its Caucasus borderlands.

Suzanne Raine June 3, 2024

Pianist Eugen D'Albert with an orchestra, 1916.

essays

Britain’s war requiem

In the First World War, British and French composers created music to commemorate the dead, but they also celebrated the way that art could transcend the divisions wrought by confl..

Richard Bratby May 29, 2024

Undated propaganda video released by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant showing a group of foreign ISIS fighters holding up their passports as they pledge allegiance to the caliphate in Anbar Province, Iraq.

essays

The Caliphate: the persistence of a brutal ideology

Radical Islamism remains a potent threat. Despite the military defeat of ISIS, the idea of the Caliphate, with its programme of terror and violence, endures.

Shiraz Maher & Joana Cook May 28, 2024