Essays

essays

The indispensable foreign correspondent

The communications revolution has transformed the context of war reporting. And yet the traditional role of the foreign correspondent is still essential.

Isabel Hilton December 11, 2020

essays

Challenging the ‘Great Reset’ theory of pandemics

Thucydides saw plague as a disease of the ‘body politic’ – and an opportunity to improve the health of society. History shows that pandemics have a way of disrupting our assumption..

Mark Honigsbaum December 10, 2020

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In search of Lebensraum

Hitler's conviction that a new Eurasian order should be constructed with Germany at its zenith had its ideological roots in the early science of geopolitics.

Richard Overy December 4, 2020

essays

China rethinking its role

With China positioning itself as a leader on the world stage, its government is drawing on memories of the role the country played in shaping the post-War order. This raises tough..

Rana Mitter December 4, 2020

essays

The world that Vasco da Gama built

Portugal’s commercial dominance of large swathes of the world lasted little more than a century but the images, transmissions, and trades that it engendered left a significant and ..

Roger Crowley November 27, 2020

essays

Covid-19 and the moral case for personal judgement

The tension between independence and compliance is everywhere in society – but in medicine, reason must come before rules.

David Seedhouse November 25, 2020

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Margaret Thatcher – the fall, thirty years on

On 22 November 1990 the Tory leader resigned. What forces brought about the end of her extraordinary premiership?

Bruce Anderson November 20, 2020

essays

Late Beauties of the British Empire

From the Archive - first published in Empire and the Future World Order (2005) after the Engelsberg Seminar. The late beauties of empire represented all that was best in the Britis..

Jan Morris November 20, 2020

essays

Parallel visionaries – Hilla Rebay and Hilma af Klint

Rebay and af Klint, both strong-willed artists, were dedicated to their beliefs in the potential of art to hold spiritual value.

Tracey Bashkoff November 20, 2020