Notebooks

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

Prime Minister Mark Carney meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China on Friday, 16th January 2026.

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The flaws in Mark Carney’s new world order

The Canadian prime minister is right to stress that middle powers must adapt to a new world order. Yet his rhetorical appeal to the heroism of anti-Communist dissidents, even as he..

George Magnus January 21, 2026

Kulusuk, Greenland. Credit: Robert Harding

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Greenland shows the limits and opportunities of Danish statecraft

American interest in Greenland confronts Denmark with a choice it has faced before. With strategic imagination, it could engage the US to forge a mutually beneficial path for the i..

Joshua Treviño January 21, 2026

Workers add the name of President Donald Trump to the exterior of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

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The Kennedy Center without the arts

Donald Trump’s reordering of the Kennedy Center illustrates a broader truth: when political leaders imprint their signature on cultural institutions, artistry finds a way to escape..

Elisabeth Braw January 20, 2026

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The first great radio hoax

In January 1926, a satirical broadcast by Father Ronald Knox sparked panic across Britain. Listeners mistook his parody of an impending revolution for real riots in the capital – a..

Daniel Marc Janes January 20, 2026

View of a massive demonstration against the Shah of Iran in downtown Tehran, 9 October 1978.

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Iran’s protest movement and the shadow of 1979

Iran’s current wave of unrest echoes the revolutionary fervour that gripped the country in the late 1970s.

Ashkan Hashemipour January 13, 2026

The Bastille in the days of the Revolution.

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How France forged the prison memoir

Nicolas Sarkozy’s 'Journal d’un prisonnier' joins a centuries-old tradition of political and personal prison writing.

Muriel Zagha January 13, 2026

An image of the US Navy's new autonomous aquatic drone submarine.

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America’s techno-imperial moment

The audacious raid in Venezuela reveals how technological advances are expanding the United States' geopolitical options.

Christian Ruth January 13, 2026

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The war for oil never really went away

From Venezuela to Ukraine, the struggle for oil continues to shape global conflict.

Paul Josephson January 12, 2026

Images of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution and Ruhollah Khomeini, his predecessor, in Tehran.

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The Islamic Republic’s Trump problem

With Iran crippled by renewed popular unrest and economic turmoil, President Trump is presented with an opportunity to dismantle the regime and its nuclear programme for good.

Charlie Laderman January 8, 2026