In a new episode of The Naked Pravda, I speak to @olyaoliker.bsky.social about Russia’s escalating incursions into NATO airspace and how today’s tensions compare to the incident a decade ago when Turkey downed a Russian bomber in Syria. meduza.io/en/episodes/...

Our new book with @benstanley.eu on illiberalism in Poland has arrived with @stanfordpress.bsky.social. We look at the successes and failures of the Law and Justice (PiS) party as a leading example of the evolving global challenges to liberal democracy. www.sup.org/books/politi...

US media coverage of the Polish president's visit to the White House...apparently, Poland is a very important ally...

nice to see some comparative work being done on Polish history and very happy to have been able to contribute to this initiative with some #comparative reflections on communist rule in #Poland and #Bulgaria... coming out soon in print...

today at #ICCEES2025 - Session 5, 14:45-16:15 - room A5.04

In London for #ICCEES2025... This Tuesday, 22 July, 14:45-16:15 we'll be holding a round table with members of the Advisory Board of my NCN-funded project 'Comparative Perspectives on Students, Generations and Communism'...

It’s here!

"The paper concludes that the genocidal character of this conflict is a litmus test of the even more destructive wars looming on the horizon."

I sat down to talk about the Polish presidential elections and the new president-elect with the Two Weeks in Central Europe podcast... balkaninsight.com/2025/06/06/t...

Nawrocki's win was a serious blow to the governing coalition, but it could potentially backfire in PiS as well...liberals and conservatives have let the far-right genie out of the bottle...some thoughts on the presidential election in Poland... balkaninsight.com/2025/06/04/n...

Poland's next president will be an international embarrassment...once again, despite such promising potential #Poland managed to fail at rising from the periphery...Europe and the EU will remain dominated by the Franco-German axis for now...

Conservative values anno 2025...pimp meets puppy killer...

WE'RE HIRING! Four 3-year Doctoral Research Assistant positions in my research project on students, generations, and communism...candidates have to be enrolled in a Polish doctoral school programme...otherwise, there's quite some flexibility...links here: isppan.bip.gov.pl/search/jobof...

for those who think Trump is some master negotiator who will convince or coerce 'the Russians'...just remember that despite nearly four decades of trying there is still no Trump Tower in Moscow...

WE'RE HIRING! Four 3-year Doctoral Research Assistant positions in my research project on students, generations, and communism...candidates have to be enrolled in a Polish doctoral school programme...otherwise, there's quite some flexibility...links here: isppan.bip.gov.pl/search/jobof...

Just a reminder that there are presidential elections in Poland this weekend...

Could not agree more! My book, Saving Apartheid: White Internationalism at the End of the Cold War, traces exactly this transatlantic connection between apartheid and the American right from 1980 to 1994. Out with Columbia University Press late 2025/early 2026!

Interesting! blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2...

no, PiS lost power because it engineered a draconian abortion ban and that mobilised women and young voters against them...right now the governing majority has lost its majority support because it has failed to show enough political will to undo that ban... www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

21. Flee to Canada...it's not the fact that Snyder left the US because of MAGA etc...it's because he did so after moralising and telling others to take a bullet for freedom...it's the hypocrisy (and resulting cowardice) that should be criticised...not the perceived threat of fascism...

And you were assuming that the US could get out of its autocracy spiral through free and fair elections in the future? Well, think again. www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

How does a country restore democracy? That's the challenge facing Poland for the past year. Turns out it's not easy. My report up shortly on @theworld.org with thanks @tomjunes.bsky.social @kamilaceran.bsky.social Tune in: theworld.org

I ordered my copy, and you should get one, too. @jeremymorris.bsky.social is one of the sharpest minds out there. The field needs scholars like him.

If you are an academic wanting to support academics under attack in Serbia, this is the place to sign. forms.office.com/pages/respon...

We historians (and others) need to start mass downloading archives from places like this before they go. Regardless of your subfield, download! I'm focusing on the CIA's FOIA site, but Wilson, the National Archives, Presidential libraries etc all have to be downloaded to be preserved.

Just remembering a friend who grew up in the GDR saying unironically “but where do you get real news in the United States? At least under communism we got radio from the West!”

On *every* front - foreign policy, domestic policy, economic policy, immigration policy - the Trump administration has been an absolutely chaotic and cruel disaster, as many of us warned it would be. To those people who are just waking up to this now, 1) you fools, but still 2) welcome to reality.

Members of Europe's political elites from Belgium's staunch Atlanticists to Poland's communist reformers were recipients of such grants...watch American influence in Europe melt like snow in the sun...

Trump has set up a devilish game for Zelensky: keep holding your head high and feel responsible for the Ukrainian deaths caused by lack of US support or grovel, apologize and resign in the hope for a few more Patriots for your country. Truly evil.

it is mind-boggling to see how two dumbass Americans thought they could get anything done by shouting at an Eastern European...

Watching Zelensky get yelled at and spoken to like a child by Vance and Trump in front of the press corps is absolutely infuriating. If Europe doesn’t step up after this, then something is seriously wrong with the continent’s political vision as a whole.

no, the EU was not set up to screw the USA...it was set up so the USA (or 'anybody' else) couldn't ultimately screw Europe...

American Turkmenbashi...

AfD overwhelmingly won votes from non-voters and the centre-right. This is a standard pattern. It is a myth that the radical right are mainly winning disaffected centre-left voters.

This is just bad history...nevermind the very worst way to do 'Applied History'

Not just that, they need to be prepared to stand up for what Europe is and what makes it different from the US. Social democracy/Christian democracy, free education, better healthcare etc. Europe in so many areas does things better than the US and it doesn't emphasize them enough

Vladimir Putin is assembling a “heavyweight team” with decades of experience in high-stakes negotiations for the talks with Trump’s guys, reports Bloomberg. Chief Kremlin foreign-policy adviser Yuri Ushakov, “top spymaster” Sergey Naryshkin, and financier Kirill Dmitriev.

Victoria Nuland, if I recall, had some choice words for Brussels when the EU dithered in 2014. Now might be the time for Europe to return the sentiment. /END

European NATO members spend 10 times more on defence than Russia...pool half of that on a European level and spend the rest on education, heathcare, social housing, etc...we'd be better off, safer in Europe...you just need to crack some nationalist skulls...

tomorrow...

Poor Law and Justice, they get a couple of mentions in the article but Orban gets the cream

Long sycophantic book acknowledgments name-checking important people can put the reviewer off #ouch

Meanwhile in Budapest, the neo-Nazi 'Day of Honour' commemoration, which its supporters continue to pretend isn't a neo-Nazi event, features many participants wearing — you guessed it! — Nazi symbols! German neo-Nazis can't do this at home, obviously, but they can go to Hungary and do it openly.

and some keep calling for resistance...but flee to Canada...a lesson in courage...

Communist Poland...travelling in style...

Authoritarian leaders view history as profoundly threatening. 🗃️ www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-f...

Good piece from one of South Africa's best newspapers on the alliance between Musk, Trump, & far right, white supremacist South Africans. www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2025...

From the archive - Richard Hornik was #Warsaw Bureau Chief for #TimeMagazine 1981-1983. He had numerous interviews with Solidarity Free Trade Union leader #LechWałęsa including his last #interview before #martiallaw was declared in Dec 1981. pod.fo/e/1838a #Poland

Brilliant Adriana Zaharijevic writes about student protests in Serbia. If you're looking for a trustworthy & insightful analysis, look no further! www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Words like "historical" and "political" are not just on this list by mistake. History and politics are also going to be real targets, as part of active research questions (anything beyond fictionalized hagiographies and state-approved revisionism).