Notebooks

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

Still from a film version of George Orwell's 1984.

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The rise of the mega-influencer

Mega-influencers shape the public imagination. And in a world where narratives matter more than facts, the imagination is where wars are won and lost.

Phillip Dolitsky and Luke Moon October 2, 2025

Hungary's prime minister Viktor Orbán at an EU summit.

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Viktor Orbán’s geopolitical hedging

The Hungarian leader's balancing act between western powers and a revisionist bloc is unsustainable in an era of great-power competition.

Elvira Viktória Tamus October 1, 2025

A British soldier manning a Lewis gun on a rooftop in the Old City of Jerusalem, in October 1938.

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Creating a quagmire in Palestine

Britain’s 1939 White Paper on Palestine, regarded as both an opportunity and a betrayal, was a point at which history failed to turn.

Jack Dickens September 30, 2025

Ride hailing drivers shout slogans as they hold flowers during a peace rally in Jakarta, Indonesia.

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Indonesia’s new economics

Indonesia’s departure from its traditional adherence to fiscal orthodoxy is fuelling economic and political anxiety.

Imran Shamsunahar September 29, 2025

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa speaks with former United States Army General David Howell Petraeus during the Concordia Annual Summit, in New York, Monday, Sept. 22, 2025.

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Syrians fear a tyranny of the majority

With Syria’s elections postponed until October, has the country's democratic transition been blown off course?

James Snell September 25, 2025

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Sarajevo’s fragile peace

Corruption and instability in the Balkans are chipping away at Bosnia's fragile political settlement.

Saffron Swire September 24, 2025

Image: Allegory of the 1st Partition of Poland, 1772. Credit: Prisma Archive

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The price of appeasement

From the 18th-century partition of Poland to the appeasement of Hitler, Europe's troubled history warns us that indecision and inaction only serve to embolden expansionist powers a..

Adam Zamoyski September 23, 2025

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Calvino and the machines

Italo Calvino's 'literature machine' is a prescient vision of the perils and promise of artificial intelligence.

Alexander Lee September 19, 2025

A newspaper French election results in the late 19th century.

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How to classify the French Right

The French Right has been shaped by prolonged struggle for the balance of power between three consistent, if evolving, tendencies: the Legitimists, the Orléanists, and the Bonapart..

Henry Hill September 19, 2025