Essays

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

Engraving of the Sack of Rome by the Visigoths led by Alaric I in 410, during the reign of Emperor Honorius.

Decline in three dimensions

Late Antiquity was not just a story of Decline and Fall - Roman elites thrived in a changing world.

Neil McLynn June 27, 2020

Hippocrates refuses presents from the envoys of King Artaxerxes, who tried to appeal to him to treat his soldiers in an epidemic.

Ancient lessons for modern crisis

The Covid-19 pandemic signals a long period of global instability.

Lawrence Freedman June 26, 2020

Lamentation for the Dead Christ. Fresco by the artist Giotto (1267-1337).

Crisis and the creation of great art

Social upheaval has often been a catalyst for artistic change - the Renaissance was no exception.

Andrew Graham-Dixon June 25, 2020

St. Louis Red Cross Motor Corps on duty during the American Influenza epidemic, 1918. Credit: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Counting the cost of the 1918-19 pandemic

The influenza pandemic behaved much like the conflict itself - picking out the young and fit before their time.

Hew Strachan June 24, 2020

City street with elegant houses.

The empty metropolis

Ghost town London had its harbingers in literature and history. How will it emerge from its isolation?

Tom Holland June 23, 2020

Engelsberg mansion

Welcome to Engelsberg Ideas

Engelsberg Ideas is a new home for great writing and podcasts on history and culture, featuring leading writers and thinkers.

Mattias Hessérus & Iain Martin June 23, 2020

Geopolitics of a pandemic

The Covid-19 crisis has accentuated all the geopolitical fault lines of the past decade.

Helen Thompson June 23, 2020

This chart is taken from the book 'Ars Magna Lucis Et Umbrae' which was published in 1646 by the Jesuit scientist and inventor, Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680).

The polymath in the age of specialisation

Crises of knowledge precipitate drives towards specialisation. In our digital age we still need polymaths.

Peter Burke June 22, 2020

People carry portraits of their relatives - soldiers of the Second World War - as they take part in the Immortal Regiment march in downtown Moscow. Credit: Aleksey Fokin/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Dealing with the past – a Russian history

In modern Russia, the past is being rewritten to suit Vladimir Putin's script.

Gudrun Persson June 21, 2020

Previous
1
…
76
77
78
79
80
Next