Notebooks

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The athleisure revolution eats its children

The cult of athleisure is outlasting the brands that created it.

Zoe Strimpel May 13, 2026

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Trump’s cards to play in China

President Trump will want Xi Jinping to increase diplomatic pressure on Iran, but not at any price.

George Magnus May 12, 2026

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The case for an Asian NATO

Co-operation between Seoul and Tokyo must be formalised beyond leader-to-leader statements if East Asia is to counter collective threats from coercive authoritarian actors.

Edward Howell May 11, 2026

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The fifth Veda and the ancient essence of art

In classical India, Bharata’s 'Natyashastra' conceived of art as sacred knowledge, in stark contrast to the diminished role aesthetic experience occupies today.

Garima Garg May 11, 2026

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Putin’s Potemkin empire

Moscow is marking Victory Day with little cause for celebration. Modern Russia has no coherent ideology to export and Putin's attempt to revive Soviet-era global influence is visib..

Owen Matthews May 8, 2026

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Why Iran will not fracture along ethnic lines

External actors have long imagined Iran as a collection of detachable ethnic blocs. In practice, its communities are so historically intertwined that separatism is almost inconceiv..

Ibrahim Al-Marashi and Tanya Goudsouzian May 8, 2026

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Geo-economics and the new logic of MAD

The Trump administration brought military supremacy to a geo-economic fight. The 21st century now has its own logic of mutually assured destruction.

Katharina J. Klotz May 7, 2026

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The myths that built the postwar world

The postwar world was built on a quintet of myths – the end of the world, the hero, the monster, the martyr and the final resurrection. They were the glue that held the internation..

Keith Lowe May 5, 2026

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Britain’s modern civil service: an idea borrowed from China

For all its elevated sense of history and institutional self-worth, the modern British civil service owes its origins, in part, to China.

Christopher Harding April 30, 2026