The confrontation over Greenland has become a defining test for the Nordic countries, revealing deep interdependencies shaped by history, geography, and alliance politics. The Nordic strategic tradition | Peter Haldén engelsbergideas.com/essays/the-n...

The mutable German-Jewish historian was many things, but never dull. The transformation of Ernst Kantorowicz | Samuel Rubinstein engelsbergideas.com/reviews/the-...

Inside Moltbook, a social network run by AI agents, bots debate, cooperate, and form communities, forcing us to rethink what culture means. Moltbook’s new society | Lisa Klaassen engelsbergideas.com/notebook/mol...

🎧The EI Podcast: The making of Xi Jinping’s worldview Rana Mitter explores Xi Jinping’s personal and ideological mindset in conversation with EI’s @jackfdickens.bsky.social audioboom.com/posts/885751...

Who is Xi Jinping and what motivates him? I sat down with Rana Mitter to explore Xi’s worldview, and what it means for both China and the world.

🎧The EI Podcast: The making of Xi Jinping’s worldview Rana Mitter explores Xi Jinping’s personal and ideological mindset in conversation with EI’s @jackfdickens.bsky.social audioboom.com/posts/885751...

Suez at 70. The standard morality tale blames Eden’s deception. But the deeper lesson is about alliance asymmetry: Britain discovered it couldn’t rely on the “Special Relationship” to simulate being a great power. My new essay for @engelsbergideas.bsky.social

The Suez Crisis marked the moment when British statesmen realised that they could no longer rely on the American alliance to simulate being a great power. Britain’s Suez catastrophe | Ioannes Chountis de Fabbri (@chountisdefabbri.bsky.social) engelsbergideas.com/essays/brita...

Do go and see the British Museum's spellbinding new Samurai exhibition if you have a chance. Meanwhile, my essay for Engelsberg Ideas on the origins and legacies of Japan's warrior class:

Nearly 700 years after their political dominance ended, Japan’s warrior elite continue to shape global culture. Why the samurai still matter | Chris Harding (@drchrisharding.bsky.social) engelsbergideas.com/essays/why-t...

📝 NEW | Last December, Dr Shiraz Maher spent a fortnight in Syria, observing celebrations to mark the first year since the country’s liberation He's now written up his experience for @engelsbergideas.bsky.social 🔗 engelsbergideas.com/notebook/vis...

The contemporary world order is poorly suited to today's dynamic, changing international system, a disparity that lies at the heart of our current sense of crisis. The future of world order | Francis J. Gavin engelsbergideas.com/essays/the-f...

China's drive to turn the Renminbi into a global currency may run into structural barriers. Dollar v Renminbi | @quantumstrategy.bsky.social engelsbergideas.com/notebook/dol...

In a post-literate world, reading is treated more like an assumed good than a skill to be actively practised. The perils of hyper-literacy | @alastairbenn.bsky.social engelsbergideas.com/notebook/the...

Germany has long been a laboratory for political experiments, good and ill. Germany, land of experiments | Daniel Johnson engelsbergideas.com/essays/germa...

Germany has long been a laboratory for political experiments, good and ill. Germany, land of experiments | Daniel Johnson engelsbergideas.com/essays/germa...

A great read from @duncanweldon.bsky.social

In a post-literate world, reading is treated more like an assumed good than a skill to be actively practised. My latest for @engelsbergideas.bsky.social: engelsbergideas.com/notebook/the...

In a post-literate world, reading is treated more like an assumed good than a skill to be actively practised. The perils of hyper-literacy | @alastairbenn.bsky.social engelsbergideas.com/notebook/the...

Efforts to craft a new identity for Syria will mean little if its government cannot get a grip on spiralling sectarian violence. Visions of a new Syria | Shiraz Maher engelsbergideas.com/notebook/vis...

This is very good and balanced.

Nietzsche believed in slow reading: attentive, effortful, and transformative. This was the essence of his philosophy of reading against the rush of modern life. @engelsbergideas.bsky.social

Treating culture as a battlefield is not the way to revitalise the world of opera. How not to save opera | Alexandra Wilson (@amwilson.bsky.social) engelsbergideas.com/reviews/how-...

Dan‑el Padilla Peralta, a prominent American classicist, has emerged as the face of radical critique in the academy – but his approach threatens to dismantle the field rather than rejuvenate it. The Revolution within Classics | Jaspreet Singh Boparai engelsbergideas.com/essays/the-r...

From Oscar Wilde to Muriel Spark, many British writers, artists and thinkers were drawn to the Catholic Church in the 20th century. The allure of Catholic conversion | Guy Stagg engelsbergideas.com/reviews/the-...

The EI Podcast: Nietzsche’s manifesto for reading Ioannes Chountis de Fabbri (@chountisdefabbri.bsky.social) on reading as an antidote to the restless spirit of the industrial age. audioboom.com/posts/885293...

Iran’s last Shah presided over rapid economic growth and social transformation. Yet the unresolved political legacy of Pahlavi rule continues to haunt Iran’s opposition. The stakes of a Pahlavi restoration | Roham Alvandi engelsbergideas.com/notebook/the...

Xi Jinping’s recent purges of senior PLA officers reveal a military stripped of independence, with obedience engineered by Leninist party structures. China’s century of purges | Clark Aoqi Wu engelsbergideas.com/essays/china...

My latest, in @engelsbergideas.bsky.social

Britain’s interwar rearmament shows that military strength depends as much on industrial and economic strategy as on sheer spending. The fourth arm of defence | @duncanweldon.bsky.social engelsbergideas.com/essays/the-f...

European leaders must rebalance, rather than replace, the bonds that tie them to the United States. Even in the age of Trump, Washington remains an indispensable partner. Why Europe and America need each other | Lawrence Freedman (@ldfreedman.bsky.social) engelsbergideas.com/notebook/why...

The Auschwitz survivor insisted we suspend moral judgement on those concentration camp prisoners who, faced with impossible choices, abetted the Nazis’ project of annihilation. Primo Levi’s grey zone | Ian Thomson engelsbergideas.com/notebook/pri...

For decades, American power was underpinned by ideals that inspired allies and adversaries alike. But the 'City on the Hill' now shines less brightly. After American exceptionalism | Marc Polymeropoulos (@mpolymer1.bsky.social) engelsbergideas.com/notebook/aft...

Night-thinking reveals what our age of reason and certainty often overlooks: the power of the holistic, the intuitive, and the fragmentary. The power of night-thinking | Mateusz Strozynski engelsbergideas.com/reviews/the-...

The history of the Western European Union illustrates how even the most useful security arrangements can wither without sustained political commitment. Bevin’s alternative European order | @lordrickettsp.bsky.social engelsbergideas.com/notebook/bev...

As the Islamic Republic continues to falter, the West should remain open to change from within the regime. The perils of a failed state in Iran | Rob Macaire engelsbergideas.com/notebook/the...

🏺 This is why we need more classicists! Read this excellent essay by @armanddangour.bsky.social for @engelsbergideas.bsky.social #ClassicsBluesky#Skystorians #AncientBluesky #History 🗃️ engelsbergideas.com/notebook/fro...

For @engelsbergideas.bsky.social, I pay tribute to a Scotland of the past, whose traces can still be heard.

From Pericles to Davos | @armanddangour.bsky.social engelsbergideas.com/notebook/fro...

The habits of speech and mind that shaped the history of Scotland’s north country still echo in the present. Scotland’s north country | @alastairbenn.bsky.social engelsbergideas.com/notebook/sco...

The price of Europe’s defence | @quantumstrategy.bsky.social engelsbergideas.com/notebook/wha...

"With his man in the White House, and by enjoying the status of a protected vassal of China, Russia buys time. [...] But whether Russia’s latest ‘Five-Year Plan’, even if achieved, will be sufficient to slow, halt, or reverse Russia’s longer-term trajectory is the greater question."

Unlocking new hydrogen fuel technologies could unleash a transformation in warfare as profound as any witnessed over the past five centuries, with far-reaching strategic implications for NATO and the war in Ukraine. Hydrogen warfare | Mara Balasa engelsbergideas.com/notebook/hyd...

With strategic imagination, Denmark could engage the US to forge a mutually beneficial path for Greenland's future. Greenland shows the limits and opportunities of Danish statecraft | Joshua Trevino engelsbergideas.com/notebook/gre...

Russia’s imperial overstretch | Daniel Peris engelsbergideas.com/essays/russi...

The flaws in Mark Carney’s new world order | @george17.bsky.social engelsbergideas.com/notebook/the...

In his 1904 novel 'Nostromo', Joseph Conrad imagined a world shaped by distant financiers and imperial ambition, anticipating a century of American global power. Conrad’s American century | Morten Høi Jensen engelsbergideas.com/notebook/con...

In his 1904 novel 'Nostromo', Joseph Conrad imagined a world shaped by distant financiers and imperial ambition, anticipating a century of American global power. Conrad’s American century | Morten Høi Jensen engelsbergideas.com/notebook/con...

The flaws in Mark Carney’s new world order | @george17.bsky.social engelsbergideas.com/notebook/the...

Learned and far‑sighted: Daniel Peris on Russia’s hegemonic destiny for @engelsbergideas.bsky.social: