Notebooks

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

Russian tanker being loaded with coal. Credit: Evgenii Parilov

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Why Russia has come to the table

Moscow is burning through its reserves and staring into a deep domestic abyss. Everyone in Putin’s Russia — from the poorest pensioner to the wealthiest oligarch — is feeling the s..

Peter Caddick-Adams November 28, 2025

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Elegy for Humberside Airport

From a wartime airfield to a landmark of regional development — now under threat — Humberside Airport's story deserves to be better known.

Juliette Bretan November 26, 2025

French army cyclists on manoeuvres in 1896.

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How France overcame defeat in the Franco-Prussian War

France's rebuilding of its diplomatic credibility after the Franco-Prussian War offers enduring lessons in national resilience.

Paul Cormarie November 25, 2025

Sudanese refugees return to Sudan from Egypt in the summer of 2025.

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Sudan’s path to peace

A peace settlement that divides the old Sudan into three new entities — one recognised state and two de facto polities — would merely extend a decades-long trajectory of geographic..

Richard Cockett November 24, 2025

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressing his country soon after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.

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The tragedy of Zelensky’s Ukraine

President Zelensky's stunning political rise promised to combat corruption and bring rapprochement with Russia. His administration is now mired in allegations of war-profiteering.

Owen Matthews November 20, 2025

Javier Milei smiles at supporters during a campaign rally in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

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How Milei made austerity popular

The history of Argentina suggests that austerity is only politically viable under two conditions. Javier Milei has achieved both.

Julieta Casas November 20, 2025

Pier Paolo Pasolini in the 1960s. Credit: Cola Images

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Pasolini’s Rome

Pier Paolo Pasolini's vision of the Eternal City was far from an aesthete's fantasy. His Rome was a real place, at once poetic and squalid, which he captured with a cartographer’s ..

Ian Thomson November 20, 2025

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan reviews the military guard of honour at the Presidential palace in Ankara. Credit: Associated Press.

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Erdogan’s new order

The Turkish president's ongoing crackdown against political opponents has left his challengers in disarray, giving him a free hand to continue reshaping the country in his own imag..

Hannah Lucinda Smith November 14, 2025

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The aesthetics of Ernst Jünger

The German war hero was an aesthete who sought to be heard only by those who might be willing to listen.

Jaspreet Singh Boparai November 14, 2025