Notebooks

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

A supporter of Argentinian President Javier Milei wears a Donald Trump mask at a rally.

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Strongmen of the New World

Familiarity with strong-armed tactics is one of the reasons why Latin Americans tend to understand Trump’s brand of populism.

Andreas Campomar January 5, 2026

A pedestrian walks past a mural of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro Sunday, 4 January, 2026.

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The authoritarian’s handbook

Examining the strategy of different authoritarian rulers reveals why, in a world of great power politics, a 'Maduro moment' may not be the fate of all despotic regimes.

Edward Howell January 5, 2026

A Japanese family cleans the home in advance of New Year celebrations.

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How Japan marks the turning of the year

New Year is the time when Japan’s Shinto underpinnings really reveal themselves, in rituals of forgetting, purification, and beginning again.

Christopher Harding December 31, 2025

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Brigitte Bardot was the face of France

She was a cultural icon who channelled the electric power of French femininity and, by extension, Frenchness itself.

Muriel Zagha December 29, 2025

The new head of Britain's MI6 Blaise Metreweli makes her first public speech.

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The evolving world of MI6

Technological shifts, alliance politics, and fractious great-power competition make the United Kingdom’s secret service’s work under its new Chief more complex than ever.

Gordon Corera December 29, 2025

A Christmas party for evacuees in Oxfordshire, 1941.

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Christmas in exile

Even in exile, Christmas offers a glimpse of hope that today’s struggles will one day fade into memory.

Fergus Butler-Gallie December 24, 2025

A performance of Bach's Christmas Oratorio in Dresden.

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The wonders of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio

Why not turn Christmastide into a thirteen-day Bach celebration, experiencing the Christmas Oratorio as it was first performed across Leipzig’s feast days in 1734–35?

Elisabeth Braw December 22, 2025

Judas Maccabeus before the army of Nicamor.

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The Jews’ time of miracles

The story of Hanukkah inspires in both its spiritual and worldly dimensions; it is the national epic of the Jewish people.

Samuel Rubinstein December 19, 2025

The Tibetan Buddhist monastery at Dhankar Gompa, in the Spiti Valley of Himachal Pradesh, northern India, close to India's border with Tibet.

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The troubled history of India’s Tibetan frontier

For centuries, India's history has been entangled with that of the Tibetan Plateau, a reality that has often fuelled tensions with the People's Republic of China – and may do so ag..

Ved Shinde December 18, 2025