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Recent Posts
- “A Swarm of Ghosts”: Anna Akhmatova’s Russia
- Saddam and his Enemies
- Italy Needs Me: The Life and Death of Silvio Berlusconi
- ‘Time Reigns’: Vernon Watkins and Wales
- Archives of Pain: Kanan Makiya and the Politics of Iraq
- Roman Tragedy: Lucio Fulci’s ‘Beatrice Cenci’
- On the Legacy of George L. Mosse
- Slaughter Commissions: Crime Films and the Italian Crisis
- ‘Everyone Middle East is here’: The British in Iraq
- The Writing Racket: Balzac’s ‘Lost Illusions’
- On Marvin Gaye’s ‘Midnight Love’
- The Queen of Condé Nast
- American Carnage: Sarah Palin’s Revolution
- ‘The Town Blazing Scarlet’: Swansea’s Blitz
- The Letwin Amendment
- In Defence of the Italian Peplum
- The Jews in Fascist Italy
- The Haunting of Yulia
- Ezra Pound & Salò
- The Passion of Yulia Tymoshenko
- GooGoosha’s Golden Globe
Archives
Category Archives: Politics
Saddam and his Enemies
Review of Samuel Helfont, Iraq Against the World: Saddam, America, and the Post-Cold War Order (Oxford University Press, 2023) On the morning of February 13, 1991, two U.S. Air Force GBU-27 smart bombs demolished ‘Public Shelter No. 25’ in the … Continue reading
Posted in France, Iraq, Politics, Russia, United States
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Italy Needs Me: The Life and Death of Silvio Berlusconi
The life of Silvio Berlusconi had one great theme: man’s battle with time. Vigorous daily exercise routines and public jogging sessions; an obsession with personal hygiene driven by a deep phobia of germs; an epic struggle against hair loss that … Continue reading
Posted in Italy, Politics, Populism
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Archives of Pain: Kanan Makiya and the Politics of Iraq
That’s the hope I still have for Iraq — that it can rediscover its destiny as a richly various and pluralistic society, a meeting ground of all sorts of creeds and groupings. That’s the hope that sustains me. Kanan Makiya, … Continue reading
Posted in Iraq, Nationalism, Politics, United States
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On the Legacy of George L. Mosse
Past history is always contemporary. George L. Mosse, The Nationalisation of the Masses In Confronting History, his posthumously published memoir, George L. Mosse recalled the occupation of Mossehaus, the headquarters of Rudolf Mosse’s German publishing empire, during the Spartacist Uprising … Continue reading
Posted in Fascism, Germany, Italy, Nationalism, Politics, Populism
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‘Everyone Middle East is here’: The British in Iraq
The real difficulty here is that we don’t know exactly what we intend to do in this country. Can you persuade people to take your side when you are not sure in the end whether you’ll be there to take … Continue reading
Posted in Britain, Iraq, Politics, United States
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American Carnage: Sarah Palin’s Revolution
I: Family Sarah Palin was like a comet zooming across the American sky — out of Alaska, a blazing vision of the republic’s future. In the thick of this current political era, it is worth re-watching the first national … Continue reading
Posted in Politics, Populism, United States
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The Letwin Amendment
His political ideas are already as antiquated as Noah’s ark. I do not know a single one of the younger men in England who is influenced by them in the slightest degree, though one hears of one occasionally, just as … Continue reading
Posted in Britain, England, Politics
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The Jews in Fascist Italy
And he would shake his head, with the expression of someone who, should they wish to, could even understand such subtleties and complications, but who is just not minded to. Such tiny fine discriminations, intriguing and engaging as they might … Continue reading
Posted in Fascism, Film, Italy, Literature, Politics
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The Haunting of Yulia
A spectre is haunting Ukraine – the spectre of Yulia Tymoshenko. Her presence has been largely erased from the anti-government protests that have convulsed Kiev since the 21st November, the day President Viktor Yanukovych formally abandoned Ukraine’s Association Agreement with … Continue reading
Posted in Politics, Russia, Ukraine
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The Passion of Yulia Tymoshenko
Judges, in general, are fuckers. Leonid Kuchma, President of Ukraine, 1994 – 2005 I: The Trial The trial of Yulia Tymoshenko peaked with her arrest for contempt of court in early August. This had been a long time coming, although it … Continue reading