Essays

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

Cicero Denounces Catiline, an 1888 painting by Italian artist Cesare Maccari.

Machiavelli and the benefits of civil strife

Niccolo Machiavelli, Renaissance statesman and political theorist, saw factional politics as essential to the prosperity of the Roman Empire and his native Florence. Are today's pa..

Alexander Lee November 10, 2020

President Lincoln statue

A government of laws

The constitutional order is changing as citizens become alienated and demand more say. Americans must take care that their habits of law – the ethos that makes the US exceptional –..

Philip Bobbitt November 7, 2020

How the British made the NHS their religion

Britain's reverence for its National Health Service was developing long before the post-war promise of a New Jerusalem.

Bruce Anderson October 30, 2020

Being human: we were born to cooperate

The human ability to cooperate is what elevates us above apes and monkeys.

Katrin Redfern October 22, 2020

LOS ANGELES - JUNE 11: The movie "Ferris Bueller's Day Off", written and directed by John Hughes. Seen here from left, Mia Sara as Sloane Peterson, Alan Ruck as Cameron Frye and Matthew Broderick as Ferris Bueller. Initial theatrical release June 11, 1986. Screen capture. Paramount Pictures. (Photo by CBS via Getty Images)

John Hughes and the making and unmaking of the American dream

John Hughes's films re-established and updated the American dream for a new generation. His complex legacy helps us understand what went so wrong.

Johan Hakelius October 16, 2020

'Diptych: Philip the Handsome and Margaret of Austria', c1493. Philip the Handsome (1478-1506) became Philip I of Castile. Margaret of Austria (1480-1530) became Regent of the Netherlands. Painting housed at The National Gallery, London.

Margaret of Austria, Duchess of Savoy – true to her own self

No matter how perilous her situation, Margaret of Austria lost neither her calm nor her composure, nor even her sense of fun.

Leonie Frieda October 12, 2020

"Protome Carafa" by Donatello, part of "The Springtime of the Renaissance. Sculpture and the Arts in Florence 1400-60" exhibition is pictured in Florence on April 6, 2013.

The great beauty of Donatello

Donatello, one of Florence's most distinguished sons, produced sculpture worthy of the ages.

Bruce Anderson October 9, 2020

British Conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher wipes crumbs off the table at 10, Downing Street, London, circa 1990. A painting of her predecessor Winston Churchill hangs on the wall behind her.

Continuity Thatcher: rescuing a complex leader from historical cliché

To argue that Thatcher attacked the post-war dream is to caricature, not illuminate, her importance to British history.

Graham Stewart October 7, 2020

Eric Clapton, John Lennon (1940 - 1980) and Keith Richards performing together at the Rolling Stones Rock And Roll Circus, Internel Studios in Stonebridge Park, Wembley, December 1968.

History shows revolutions are a disaster

Karl Marx was wrong about revolutions - in practice, they beget Caesars and Napoleons.

Richard Whatmore September 29, 2020

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