Essays

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

Leonidas at Thermopylae, by Jacques-Louis David, 1814.

essays

The West’s Lust for Liberty

The love of liberty is not unique to the West but the lust for liberty is.

Christopher Coker April 21, 2023

essays

Hacktivism’s Cold War Turns Hot

Hacktivism's definitive role in the Ukraine-Russia conflict shows that the future of war is already here and it's digital.

Vasileios Karagiannopoulos and Athina Karatzogianni April 17, 2023

Alexander Pushkin statue in Pushkin Square, Moscow.

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Taking Pushkin off his pedestal

Too often Russian literature is fetishised. It needs to be liberated. That process should begin with Pushkin.

Thomas de Waal April 12, 2023

Promotional poster for the film, Spartacus. 1960.

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Spartacus, history’s nowhere man

Spartacus is a figure who floats between history and allegory, an empty void, like the upper slopes of Vesuvius, where he and his supporters first took refuge, now obliterated by e..

Richard Miles April 11, 2023

A scene of the Chinese campaign against rebels in East Turkestan, 1828.

essays

A most rebellious territory

Xinjiang’s Uighurs live under the heaviest surveillance in the world, victims of a long battle between China and Russia to settle their Central Asian borderlands.

Michael Sheridan April 5, 2023

essays

How 1970s California created the modern world

What happened in California in the 1970s played an outsized role in creating the world we live in today – both in the United States and in large parts of the globe – for better or ..

Francis J. Gavin April 3, 2023