Notebooks

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

Chinese yuan surrounded by US dollar bills.
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Trade imbalances are stalking the global order

Global imbalances are unsustainable, and always unwind. The circumstances under which they do herald moments of crisis.

George Magnus September 15, 2025
Flags from the Scandinavian countries Denmark, Norway and Sweden waving from flagpoles together with the EU flag.
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Norway’s European destiny

In today's hostile geopolitical environment, there is a growing belief that the Nordic nation should join the European Union. Yet the muddle of Norwegian coalition politics continu..

Janne Haaland Matláry September 12, 2025
Sébastien Lecornu and French President Emmanuel Macron at the Hotel des Invalides in Paris, France, 19 June 2023.
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Macron goes back to Gaullism

Sébastien Lecornu, France's new prime minister, belongs to a French Right that does not exist anymore: Gaullist and social minded. Can he appease his country's fractious parliament..

Agnès Poirier September 11, 2025
Supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro protest against his Supreme Court trial in Sao Paulo on Sunday, September 7, 2025.
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Brazil’s moment of truth

As the trial of the country's former president, Jair Bolsonaro, reaches its final stages, Donald Trump has raised the spectre of US interference in Brazilian politics.

Stephen G. Bloom September 11, 2025
Washington delivering his inaugural address April 1789, in the old city hall, New York City.
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America’s addiction to intrigue

Bitter partisan battles over intelligence, and accusations of collusion with foreign powers, have a long history in the United States.

Jeffrey Rogg September 11, 2025
Members of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) holding up flags on trucks during a military parade held in front of Tiananmen Gate on September 3, 2025 in Beijing, China.
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The politics of a military parade

From Stalin’s 1941 May Day parade in Moscow to Xi’s Tiananmen Square display, military spectacles have long been used to project power and mask vulnerability.

Peter Caddick-Adams September 10, 2025
A Baghdad street scene captured in 1955. Credit: INTERFOTO
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Journeys in modernist Baghdad

In the 1950s, monarchists and revolutionaries sought to transform Baghdad’s urban landscape, bringing the city’s ancient past into contact with futuristic modernism.

Adam Sami Kydd September 9, 2025
Royal Scots Guards military pipers playing bagpipes in kilt uniforms at Edinburgh Castle in a military ceremony, Scotland, UK.
notebook

Iran’s strange Scottish obsession

The Islamic Republic's curious obsession with the cause of Scottish independence provides a fascinating insight into the worldview of Iran's paranoid leaders.

Rob Macaire September 8, 2025
General Douglas MacArthur arrives in Japan in 1945.
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General MacArthur, maker of postwar Japan

Douglas MacArthur's legacy remains complex – part liberator, part censor, part architect – but undeniably, he was a builder of the Japan we know today.

Iain MacGregor September 3, 2025

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