Notebooks

Notebooks are snapshots from our writers, reflecting on current affairs and underappreciated aspects of culture and history.

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The other Middle Sea

The Black Sea is back at the centre of a new order of world geopolitics.

Edward Thicknesse October 11, 2021

The Nobel Peace Prize-winning dissident is representative of a tragic generation of intellectuals in China who had some voice in the wider world, and almost none in their home country.

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Remembering Liu Xiaobo’s moral critique of modern China

The Nobel Peace Prize-winning dissident is representative of a tragic generation of intellectuals in China who had some voice in the wider world, and almost none in their home coun..

Kerry Brown October 10, 2021

Boys from the Yao people participating in circumcision and coming of age rites, 2005.

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Kids these days

Teenagers first emerged as a distinct group seventy years ago, sparking outrage and moral panic – as well as a rush by corporations to cash in on a new demographic. But adolescent..

Eve Webster October 8, 2021

Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen, London, June 1974.

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Genius has its limits

Many 20th century rock stars have harboured literary pretensions and written novels and poems. The mercurial quality of their efforts shows that at least some of them should just s..

Francesca Peacock October 7, 2021

French caricature of a portly Englishman, 1812.

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Donnez moi un break

Franglais can be a charming way to bridge the gap between the ever-bickering neighbours, the UK and France, but only when the franglaphone bears both sides of the channel in mind.

Agnès Poirier October 1, 2021

Lion print for Allen & Ginter Cigarettes

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In search of Narnia

Read C.S. Lewis’ children’s classics as an adult, and their mix of fantastical imagination, complex theology, and philosophical ponderings converge towards a fundamental human desi..

Marie Daouda September 30, 2021

Pedestrians walk past clocks in the financial district of Canary Wharf, London

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The march of the sovereign individuals

Co-authored by James Dale Davidson, an American financier, and William Rees-Mogg, former editor of The Times, The Sovereign Individual forecasted a world of ceaseless technological..

Oliver Rhodes September 28, 2021

Resting on the Crest of a Hill by Alfred James Munnings. Credit: Geoffrey Clements/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images

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The forgotten grande dame of English letters

Isabel Colegate deftly captured the style and atmosphere of the late Edwardian class in works such as 'The Shooting Party' and yet remains overlooked.

Malcolm Forbes September 24, 2021

'The Progress of Steam. A View in Regent's Park, 1831', 1828. Steam-powered coaches, horses, tricycles, including one with body like a teapot, are speeding along or blowing up and causing traffic chaos in Regent's Park, London. Aquatint after Henry Alken (1774-1851)

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Is energy the god of progress?

American historian Henry Adams' optimistic creed of progress and energy innovation foundered on technological forces unleashed in the 20th century.

Helen Thompson September 23, 2021