Having practically saved Europe from a communist takeover, Poland’s head of state Joseph Pilsudski’s insistence a century ago on a strong, independent Ukraine, protected by the Western democracies from Russian intimidation and threats, resonates powerfully today.
Our culture of immediate information-sharing puts military operations in jeopardy.
The weather was more than just a backdrop to Orwell’s narratives – it shaped his life and art in profound and unexpected ways.
In 1812, the brutally cold Russian winter helped defend Moscow and defeat Napoleon’s army. In 2022, Vladimir Putin will be hoping the ground freezes to allow his conventional forces to engage in fighting.
Untangling abstract words from one language to another is a subjective task – and translations often reveal as much about their translator as their original text
For all his qualities as a filmmaker, Peter Jackson’s representation of Denethor shows how he is unable to fuse the genius of Tolkien and the rich sensibility he brought to bear in what he termed ‘the cauldron of story’ – the common weal of imagination that produced the great sagas, Old English epics and folklore – into his own art.
Modern attempts to categorise phenomena as varied as mental illness should be reevaluated. Wittgenstein’s family resemblance concept points to the folly of labelling any number of behaviours under one ever-expanding banner.
Classical and novel appear antithetical but a search for the new is evident in some of the oldest literary works.
Santa Claus is famous for his; today’s hipsters accessorise them – but the fashion for facial hair can be traced all the way back to Ancient Rome.
The patrician nature of Italian education takes students on a one-way journey of factual regurgitation – but sometimes cracks in the system let a little light in.
In Ancient Athens, ostracism, a mechanism for exiling citizens written into its laws, was thought to play a pivotal role in preserving the health of the city-state. But how did it play out in practice?
The forthcoming Winter Games in Beijing are already proving controversial – but from their modern
inception, the Olympic Games have always been ambiguous, contradictory, and often mired in scandal.The only certainty remaining is physical excellence.
For the ancient Egyptians, among the many thousands of species available for scrutiny, none were so present or as closely watched as birds.
The role for women in Chinese politics has not moved on greatly from the Mao era. They are actors not in their own right, but only by association with men.
The conductor was a radical whose approach to music was singular and unorthodox, bequeathing audiences with a scintillating treasure trove of unique concerts and recordings that do not entirely belong to the composer who conceived them.
All the joy has gone out of modern Tennis, which privileges power and mathematical strategic thinking. It’s time to rediscover what makes ball games so much fun – comedy, lightness and a sense of play.
The famous flea market inspired Tintin’s creator, Hergé, and remains a place of glorious disorderliness where economics are boiled down to their simplest form.
The journey into wine is almost like a pilgrimage, with many new encounters and friends along the way.
Warnings against optimistic overreaching run deep in many traditions, but humans nevertheless keep finding excuses to cast caution to the winds. But the true value of progress and even the very idea of its desirability are debatable.
The Dutch Golden Age painter pioneered the rough and loose brushstrokes that brilliantly infuse his subjects with life – but the facts about his life remain sparse even today.
First published in 1621, Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy is a treatise, an encyclopedia, a self-help manual and more besides. Remarkably ahead of its time, this treasure trove contains unbounded riches for new readers.
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