Notebooks

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

C-47 Skytrains unloading at Tempelhof Airport during the Berlin Airlift.
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The Berlin Airlift’s lessons for Taiwan

If China blockades the Taiwan Strait, Taipei’s friends would need to launch an airlift even more comprehensive than the Berlin one.

Elisabeth Braw June 24, 2024
Joseph Cotton and Orson Welles in The Third Man.
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The Third Man’s cuckoo clock mystery

The 1949 film The Third Man is recognised as one of the greatest pieces of British cinema of all time. The answer to a mystery at the heart of some its most famous lines might lie ..

Thomas W. Hodgkinson June 19, 2024
An American and South Korean soldier stand at a border outpost.
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South Korea between the great powers

South Korea rests between two great powers, China and the United States, and its foreign policy must navigate the economic, political and security dynamics of an increasingly polar..

Lukasz Bednarski June 18, 2024
James Ensor's 'Christ's Entry into Brussels', 1889.
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James Ensor, the man behind the masks

When the Belgian artist James Ensor died 75 years ago, he left behind a set of paintings that seemed to glory in the macabre. His art, however, reveals a profound passion for light..

Cath Pound June 17, 2024
The singer Francoise Hardy.
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Françoise Hardy’s English connections

The late French singer captured the hearts of multiple generations of England's rock fraternity.

Alexander Larman June 13, 2024
French President Emmanuel Macron walks through the Galerie des Bustes at Versailles.
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Macron’s very French gambit

By calling parliamentary elections, will Emmanuel Macron save the constitution by drawing on a distinctively French legacy of political action, or risk the future of the republic?

Angus Brown June 11, 2024
Helena Bonham Carter and Julian Sands in A Room with a View (1985).
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The magic of Merchant Ivory

The unconventional backgrounds and insider-outsider credentials of the film-makers Ismail Merchant and James Ivory qualified them to chronicle, with such precision and power, E.M. ..

Muriel Zagha June 10, 2024
Supporters of the Samajwadi Party and Indian National Congress shout slogans and wave flags at an election rally, May 2024. Credit: Associated Press / Alamy Stock Photo
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India sends Modi a message

The 2024 Indian election delivered a shock result, depriving Narendra Modi's seemingly invincible BJP of an expected majority. The prime minister will now have to temper some of hi..

Mukulika Banerjee June 6, 2024
An illustration of the Kremlin and the sinking of the Moskva, Russia's Black Sea fleet's flagship on a billboard in Odessa, Ukraine.
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Learning the right lessons from Ukraine’s naval war

The conflict between Ukraine and Russia in the Black Sea offers both lessons and warnings about the future of naval warfare.

Joshua C. Huminski June 6, 2024

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