The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
The Victory of Man and Machine “This is a war of engines. It is impossible to have too many of them, and the side having the largest number of engines is bound to win.” So said Joe Stalin at the Celebration Meeting of the Moscow Soviet of Working People’s Deputies and...
Rachel Bellman’s play, These Demons, comes to life in an unkempt cottage set, staged at Battersea’s Theatre503 in London. A dark comedy-horror, These Demons is a layered piece that explores Jewish demonology, an arguably niche subject not often depicted in theatre,...
A cup of coffee and the question ‘What is your fantasy death?’ A unique welcoming as you enter the set of Ben Target’s Lorenzo, though one that aptly sets the successive warmth and whimsical tone of the evening. Directed by the late Adam Brace, the Edinburgh fringe...
Putin and the Old-Age Dilemmas of Russian Military Reform Ever since he first ascended to power, as acting president in 1999 and then elected in 2000, Vladimir Putin has made it clear that building a powerful military was not only one of his personal priorities but...
The War for the Soul of the Nation When the tide of the Eastern Front turned at Stalingrad and the Red Army rolled over the territory of Poland in pursuit of the rapidly retreating German forces, some Poles saw it as an invasion; others welcomed it as a liberation....
Khaled al–Asaad “In spite of my advanced age,” wrote the French historian Paul Veyne in 2015, “it is my duty as a former professor and as a human being to voice my stupefaction before this incomprehensible destruction, and to sketch a portrait of the past splendour of...
The British Isles of the sixth century are, in many ways, an undiscovered country. In fact, a paucity of surviving primary sources make the period largely undiscoverable, even though it is nestled between the fall of Rome and the rise of the Christian Church, both of...
Shortly after Cyrus the Great conquered the Babylonian Empire in 539 BC, he dedicated inscriptions commemorating his achievements, to wit: “The great gods have delivered into my hands all the lands, and I caused the land to live in peace.” With much of the known world...
How the Russians See Themselves If you want to work out what your opponent is likely to do next, you need to understand how he sees himself. During the Cold War our judgement of Soviet behaviour was often distorted by prejudice, ignorance, and wishful thinking....
The Assyrian Homeland To the Assyrians, the ‘Land of Ashur’, the mat Ashur – a term first employed in the Middle Assyrian kingdom – embraced not just the Assyrian triangle but also the lands between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers that had been conquered in the 13th...
