Notebooks

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

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Ancient scandals and power struggles: Succession’s unexpected playfulness with ancient history

The hit TV show inevitably creates literary and historical resonances, but its classical references are always on the money.

Armand D'Angour February 16, 2022

Graffiti of Vladimir Putin on building wall on Maroseyka street in the central Moscow, Russia.

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Putin’s Poison Pill

The Russian president’s ambition to restore his country’s Soviet-era influence is solely in his own interest – at the expense of the nation’s long-term security and prosperity.

Gregory Feifer February 16, 2022

Beyonce performs at the half-time show at Super Bowl XLVII in New Orleans, Louisiana. Credit: Francis Specker / Alamy Stock Photo

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God Bless America: A Short History of the Super Bowl Halftime Show

The wildly-popular twelve-minute performances are a fascinating microcosm of the country’s wider political issues.

Fay Schopen February 11, 2022

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Weimar on the West Coast

Many German literary exiles flourished briefly in post-war Los Angeles – and their legacy lives on in a variety of ways.

Simon Beattie February 4, 2022

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The cloak-and-dagger intrigue of Italian presidential elections

The recent spectacle has held Italians and political observers spellbound — but the system’s twists and turns are also strangely dispiriting.

Tobias Jones February 1, 2022

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The intoxicating humanism of Truffaut’s Les 400 Coups

Truffaut’s interest in people - their emotional lives, their relationships with one another - continues to fascinate. His films are about childhood, adolescence, love, loss, desire..

Agnès Poirier January 27, 2022

Bolshevik propaganda poster of Polish-Soviet war, 1920. Text reads: 'This is how the Polish lords' plan finishes. Long live Soviet Poland'.

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The 1920 Battle for Ukraine — a warning from the past

Having practically saved Europe from a communist takeover, Poland's head of state Joseph Pilsudski’s insistence a century ago on a strong, independent Ukraine, protected by the Wes..

Joshua D. Zimmerman January 24, 2022