Notebooks

notebook

Pensions in a time of kings

The idea of a ‘right to retirement’ dates back to the Ancien Régime, derived from the social expectations of its elites, and dependent upon the king’s authority. The French protest..

Lola Salem April 7, 2023

notebook

Succession: the end of the line

Succession will probably conclude like so many other great narrative artworks – a bit shambolically, leaving the viewer mostly bewildered and frustrated.

Alastair Benn April 7, 2023

notebook

Laughing with the Face of God

Christianity is often derided as a humourless creed, but since earliest times Easter has been a time of laughter, prompted by a belief in Christ’s victory over death.

Fergus Butler-Gallie April 7, 2023

notebook

Prisoner of Putin

During the latter decades of the Cold War, Western correspondents could feel reasonably secure behind the Iron Curtain, but because Vladimir Putin no longer aspires to be part of t..

Elisabeth Braw April 5, 2023

notebook

When the Founding Fathers opposed the Supreme Court

With the overturning of abortion rights in America, questions have turned to the court’s legitimacy and power — but this is not a new debate. It has haunted US politics for centuri..

Angus Brown March 31, 2023

notebook

Locked arms: looming threats to the Romania-NATO partnership

The strategically important relationship between NATO and Romania has historically been positive — but now pressure from a number of factors, including the war in Ukraine, domestic..

Mara Balasa March 24, 2023

notebook

Showing technology the Red Card

Sport filtered through cameras, however precise, however well-positioned, is stripped of the suggestive qualities that make it so attractive to the human eye. It is also stripped o..

Alastair Benn March 23, 2023

notebook

America’s Afghan reckoning

The scale and speed of the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban in 2021 stunned the world — but as a recent report makes clear, the signs of impending disaster were already in place.

Katherine Bayford March 23, 2023

notebook

Inside the new Notre Dame

Every end is a new beginning, particularly for the specialised artisans working against the clock to rebuild Paris’s 850-year-old Gothic cathedral.

Agnès Poirier March 20, 2023