Notebooks

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Did Homer dream of androids?

The Iliad is full of self-driving machines and androids with minds of their own. The ancient world's dream of intelligence reveals very human desires.

David Lloyd Dusenbury July 17, 2026

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Sport is adventure by other means

Western democracies play out their appetites for risk within the artificial confines of sport, an impulse that runs especially deep in the English national character.

Alastair Benn July 16, 2026

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The pogroms after the Holocaust

Eighty years after the pogrom in the Polish city of Kielce, the ancient antisemitic blood libel that drove it is resurfacing across the West.

Keith Lowe July 16, 2026

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The most faithful Odyssey

The 1968 RAI series is the most faithful Odyssey on screen. How will Nolan's condensed blockbuster compare?

Paul Lay July 15, 2026

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The creedal nation

A contentious birthright citizenship ruling has re-opened an old American question: is the United States defined by allegiance, or by blood and soil?

Sumantra Maitra July 15, 2026

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The Common-Law mind and the renewal of America

Abraham Lincoln's faith in American democracy was formed during his years as a country lawyer. He believed that the nation could regenerate itself even in the darkest crisis.

Dane McAfee July 14, 2026

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Franco’s war on Spanish Jews

To his dying day, the Spanish caudillo was animated by a deeply ingrained belief in the existence of an international Judeo-Masonic-Bolshevik conspiracy to overthrow Christian civi..

Colin Shindler July 13, 2026

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The myth of Icelandic insularity

As Icelanders prepare to vote on resuming EU talks, the island's elites have spent centuries managing external influence to their advantage.

Matthías Aron Ólafsson July 11, 2026

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Recording Japan’s disabled lives

Ten years after the Sagamihara killings, the worst act of violence against disabled people in modern history, Japan's attitudes to disability are slowly changing.

Christopher Harding July 10, 2026