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.

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...

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...

A great read from @duncanweldon.bsky.social

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

📝 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...

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:

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...

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...

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...

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-...

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-...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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

@alastairbenn.bsky.social is joined by Prof Leo Damrosch – author of Storyteller: The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson – to explore RLS’s life & legacy, including one of his most enduring literary creations: Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde via @engelsbergideas.bsky.social #C19 💙📚 www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnJ2...

The Kennedy Center without the arts | Elisabeth Braw engelsbergideas.com/notebook/the...

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

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

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...

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...

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...

📝 NEW | "A neutered and boxed-in Iran consumed by internal affairs serves the Gulf perfectly." In his latest essay for @engelsbergideas.bsky.social, Dr Shiraz Maher examines the fate of Iran's uprising in light of the troubled history of the Arab Spring engelsbergideas.com/essays/is-th...

The troubled history of the Arab Spring sheds light on the fate of Iran’s uprising. It explains why the Islamic Republic continues to survive waves of mass protest, but may be approaching a tipping point. Is the Islamic Republic on borrowed time? | Shiraz Maher engelsbergideas.com/essays/is-th...

Lovely bit of micro-history: a 1926 BBC broadcast panicked Britain. Daniel Marc Janes for @engelsbergideas.bsky.social:

The first great radio hoax | Daniel Marc Janes engelsbergideas.com/notebook/the...

A fascinating snapshot from Felice Basbøll for @engelsbergideas.bsky.social on the complex bonds between Greenland and Denmark. engelsbergideas.com/portraits/kn...

The capitalists, industrialists and entrepreneurs of early modern Britain combined ambition, ingenuity and moral compromise to transform the economic world. Britain’s ruthless rise | Samuel Rubinstein engelsbergideas.com/reviews/brit...

The explorer Knud Rasmussen helped define Denmark’s Arctic ambitions while documenting Inuit culture at the very moment it was being transformed. Knud Rasmussen and the making of modern Greenland | Felice Basbøll engelsbergideas.com/portraits/kn...

The woman who made the Tudors | @katherineharvey.bsky.social engelsbergideas.com/reviews/the-...

The invention of Singapore | Nic Allen engelsbergideas.com/essays/the-i...

Genoa 1922: a postwar reset that went wrong | Oliver Yule-Smith engelsbergideas.com/essays/genoa...

It was fascinating to talk to the brilliant Charlie Laderman about US foreign policy from the Monroe Doctrine to the Donroe Doctrine:

It was fascinating to talk to the brilliant Charlie Laderman about US foreign policy from the Monroe Doctrine to the Donroe Doctrine:

🎧The EI Podcast: The Monroe Doctrine explained @jackfdickens.bsky.social is joined by Charlie Laderman to discuss how the United States’ hemispheric ambitions emerged from great-power competition. audioboom.com/posts/883473...

The two Americas | Damian Valdez engelsbergideas.com/essays/the-t...

Thomas Mann’s art of contradiction | Charlotte Stroud engelsbergideas.com/reviews/thom...