Essays

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

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essays

Why do democracies decay?

Is decay inevitable? Is democracy too unstable? The example of Ancient Athens shows us how delicate democratic institutions are.

Daniela Cammack February 12, 2021
Famous Georgian terraced houses in the Circus, Bath, England.
essays

Robert Adam and building beautiful

The elegance of Georgian architecture, best exemplified in Bath and Edinburgh, can inspire a modern Renaissance in British housing design.

Frank Salmon February 4, 2021
Arrival of the first train from St. Petersburg to Tsarskoye Selo on 30 October 1837. Found in the collection of I. Turgenev Memorial Museum, Moscow.
essays

Between Westernisers and Slavophiles – the search for Russia’s soul

Russian identity is shaped by its literature, perhaps more so than any other major world power. The arguments championed by its great authors resonate in the present.

Andrei Zorin February 2, 2021
The Jesuit fathers, Detail from a 17th century Japanese paper screen of the Jesuit Fathers arriving in Japan.
essays

Christianity in a cold climate – Jesuit encounters with Japan

When Jesuit missionaries arrived in Japan, they found a rich and beautiful culture - their early dialogues left deep marks on civilisation in Europe and in Asia.

M.Antoni J. Ucerler, S.J. January 29, 2021
British Foreign Secretary Austen Chamberlain, right, was a key player at the Locarno Conference. Benito Mussolini, Prime Minister of Italy, sits far left.
essays

The return of great power diplomacy

One of the original conceptions of the United Nations Organization, and the 1925 Locarno Pact, show how leading states might think about diplomacy in the new age of great power com..

Andrew Ehrhardt January 27, 2021
Poster showing the Statue of Liberty in ruins, and the New York skyline in flames. Published by Ketterlinus, Philadelphia. Color lithograph, 1918, 104×75 cm.
essays

America – nation of myth-makers

Enduring debates about rights, freedom and individualism take us back to rival interpretations of what went on in the 1770s and 1780s.

David Reynolds January 21, 2021
A construction worker in Washington, 1962, framed by the Capitol Building
essays

American democracy can help fix America’s broken society

Political, economic and cultural power is concentrated in a new national oligarchy that creates resentment. Responsible leadership, of the kind seen in the mid-20th century, is nee..

Michael Lind January 20, 2021
This cartoon depicts a sorrowful Britannia laying a wreath on Abraham Lincoln's shrouded body. From Punch May 6, 1865
essays

How the idea of America changed Britain

A land of promise, economic might, uncouth citizens and brutal slavery - there was no one image of America in 19th and early 20th century Britain.

Kathleen Burk January 18, 2021
George Blake died in Moscow, his country of exile.
essays

Traitorous Blake motivated by Cold War convictions

George Blake, who died last month at the age of 98, was a Soviet double agent defined by his dangerous loyalty not to money, nor homeland, but to ideological principle.

Calder Walton & Christopher Andrew January 15, 2021

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