Notebooks

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

A naturalization ceremony in New York City.

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The creedal nation

A contentious birthright citizenship ruling has re-opened an old American question: is the United States defined by allegiance, or by blood and soil?

Sumantra Maitra July 15, 2026

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The Common-Law mind and the renewal of America

Abraham Lincoln's faith in American democracy was formed during his years as a country lawyer. He believed that the nation could regenerate itself even in the darkest crisis.

Dane McAfee July 14, 2026

A pro-Franco propaganda poster from the Spanish Civil War.

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Franco’s war on Spanish Jews

To his dying day, the Spanish caudillo was animated by a deeply ingrained belief in the existence of an international Judeo-Masonic-Bolshevik conspiracy to overthrow Christian civi..

Colin Shindler July 13, 2026

Abraham Ortelius' map of Iceland, created around 1590.

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The myth of Icelandic insularity

As Icelanders prepare to vote on resuming EU talks, the island's elites have spent centuries managing external influence to their advantage.

Matthías Aron Ólafsson July 11, 2026

A flower and offering is seen in front of the entrance of the Tsukui Yamayuri-en building at Sagamihara.

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Recording Japan’s disabled lives

Ten years after the Sagamihara killings, the worst act of violence against disabled people in modern history, Japan's attitudes to disability are slowly changing.

Christopher Harding July 10, 2026

John Wilkes returns to London in triumph.

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People versus Parliament: a warning from the 18th century

The radical John Wilkes was expelled from the Commons and returned by his constituents again and again. The appeal over Parliament's head to the people is a very old manoeuvre.

Ioannes Chountis de Fabbri July 9, 2026

'The Monroe Doctrine, 1823' by Allyn Cox (1973), a large oil mural in the US Capitol. Credit: Wikimedia/ US Capitol

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The good, the bad, and the ugly of the Monroe Doctrine

For over three quarters of the nation's lifespan, the Monroe Doctrine has uniquely captured the American mind, for better or worse.

Joseph Ledford July 9, 2026

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A lost world of perfect diction

A 1970 documentary on Virginia Woolf gathers a cast of talking heads, Elizabeth Bowen among them, who speak with an eloquence and clarity that have almost disappeared.

Paul Lay July 8, 2026

John Horne Tooke, far left, in a contemporary cartoon satirising radical opinion.

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Hans Aarsleff and the uses of error

The intellectual legacy of the Danish-born scholar shows that 'error' is a good word in the historian's lexicon.

Samuel Rubinstein July 6, 2026