Empire and System: Paul W. Schroeder’s Warnings
Paul W. Schroeder was no Marxist, but in an age of collapsing empires and revived realpolitik, his cold-eyed history of diplomacy offers the left a theory of ruin we can use
The rest of the blog
Paul W. Schroeder was no Marxist, but in an age of collapsing empires and revived realpolitik, his cold-eyed history of diplomacy offers the left a theory of ruin we can use
Marine Le Pen is out of the race, but her party is preparing for power.
Dan Edelstein’s The Revolution to Come: A History of an Idea from Thucydides to Lenin and Enzo Traverso’s Revolution: An Intellectual History
This book is about the fens. I live on the edge of the fens, a flat place. When the wind blows it stops for no one. But the fens are not about wind. They are about earth and water. Black earth.
Whipple’s Uncharted is less a chronicle of Trump’s comeback than an unflinching autopsy of a decaying liberal order that mistook gerontocracy for stability and denial for strategy
On the Supreme Court ruling in For Women Scotland v. Scottish Ministers
On Blair, Starmer, and the end of globalisation
Andrew Hindmoor’s Haywire offers a quietly devastating account of Britain’s long crisis, from Blair’s stage-managed optimism to Truss’s market-induced implosion, tracing how New Labour’s betrayals laid the foundations for a state that can no longer govern itself.
Twenty-two years ago, millions marched against the invasion of Iraq. I was one of them. We were right; the war was wrong. And yet it happened anyway. That was the moment I realised: marching doesn’t cut through when empire’s at stake.
The Iraq War was not just a regrettable event but a calamitous blunder that continues to reverberate to this day. In scrutinising the reasons behind the conflict and its lingering effects, I’ve delved into three recent articles covering the legacy of the Iraq war, two in Foreign Affairs and one from The Atlantic. These articles detail the ideological and strategic forces that drove the US and UK towards invasion, leading to catastrophic outcomes that were both unforeseen and brutal. The war’s impact gave rise to widespread displacement, which in turn became a breeding ground for violent extremist groups. The dire consequences of misguided military interventions serve as a harsh reminder that war always comes at a great cost, and that those in power must take heed of the lessons of history.