Essays

essays

An unlikely artistic alliance: the wartime Britons who saved and celebrated German art

From Kandinsky to Klee, the Nazi party deemed entire swathes of artistic movements as worthless and degenerate. The English city Leicester provided a home to these Central European..

Juliette Bretan September 23, 2022

essays

What did it mean to belong to the Holy Roman Empire?

The Holy Roman Empire was neither a nation state nor indeed a conventional empire. Instead, its inhabitants were unified through a web of legal rights.

Peter Wilson September 23, 2022

essays

The Elizabethan era is laid to rest

The funeral of Queen Elizabeth II was a chance for Britons to reflect upon their national identity and consider how their nation has transformed over the past seventy years. It als..

Adam Boulton September 19, 2022

essays

The cultural conversation of mankind

Isolationist thinking and exceptionalism is on the rise and our global culture is the poorer for it. Our civilisations thrive when in conversation with each other: ideas are exchan..

Christopher Coker September 15, 2022

essays

Four reasons to study Polybius — most practical of ancient historians

With something of a tedious regularity, furious debates flare up among political scientists over the value of Thucydides to their theories of international relations. If the Atheni..

Iskander Rehman September 9, 2022

essays

The problem of power in Russia

Russia has never quite reconciled its traditional culture of ‘joint responsibility' with the rule of law.

Geoffrey Hosking September 7, 2022

essays

Algorithms vs Humanity

What sort of humanist thinking should we be pursuing in the age of smart machines? Is humanism compatible with AI? Or do humans need to think of smart digital tech as a species thr..

Andrew Keen September 5, 2022

essays

Mikhail Gorbachev gave Russia a chance

Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev had the singular misfortune of living long enough to watch some of his most important achievements reversed by his myopic successors. But he did accom..

Sergey Radchenko September 1, 2022

essays

The economy and the paradox of technology

Since the Industrial Revolution, technology has greatly enhanced humanity’s capacity to shape the world through manufacturing and finance. However, these technological developments..

Samuel Gregg August 30, 2022