Knižnica

The year 2014 will be remembered in Europe for the West’s rickety consensus on how best to minimize the damage caused by Russia’s resurgence as a revisionist power. Developments along Europe’s periphery marked the unequivocal end of aspirational “positive geopolitics,” built around the belief that the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1990 began a […]

President Obama stands accused of political correctness for his unwillingness to accuse groups such as the Islamic State of “Islamic extremism,” choosing a more generic term, “violent extremism.” His critics say that you cannot fight an enemy you will not name. Even his supporters feel that his approach is too “professorial.” But far from being […]

Sometimes it is easy to forget why we study history. Of course, we use the past to understand the present; but also, ideally, we learn from it too. What a shame, then, that there is no space in the new national curriculum for the history of Byzantium. The eastern half of the Roman empire that […]

It was born in the ashes of World War II and grew rapidly during Les Trente Glorieuses, the 30 years of economic development that followed that conflict. It then matured, expanded, and acquired both a currency and a good deal of respect. By the start of the 21st century, it was feted as a great […]

Over the past decade, Turkey and Brazil have been widely celebrated as star economic performers—emerging markets with increasing influence on the international stage. Yet, over the past three months, both countries have been paralyzed by massive demonstrations expressing deep discontent with their governments’ performance. What is going on here, and will more countries experience similar […]

Ronan McCrea is a barrister and a lecturer at the Faculty of Laws at University College London. His latest book is Religion and the Public Order of the European Union (2010). he European relationship between religion, law and politics is a strange creature. Religious influence over political life is weaker in Europe than in almost […]

Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has announced that he wants to give away $45 billion. I’m sure he needs some advice on how to spend it. Here’s mine: He should use it to undo the terrible damage done by Facebook and other forms of social media to democratic debate and civilized discussion all over the […]

Frank Furedi is a sociologist and commentator. He is the author of many books, including: Therapy Culture: Cultivating Vulnerability in an Uncertain Age (2003); and, most recently, Power of Reading: From Socrates to Twitter (2015). The aim of this slim volume of essays, The Clash of Civilisations? The Debate: Twentieth Anniversary Edition, is to commemorate […]

Amid all the panic over the EU’s mounting “migrant crisis”, let’s remember that we have been here before: in fact, a near-perpetual emergency has gathered force ever since the EU started closing its common external borders in the 1990s. Since that time, migration has come to be colonised by interior ministries and security forces as […]

Analysis In his latest novel, French writer Michel Houellebecq presents a controversial situation: The year is 2022, and France has become an Islamicized country where universities have to teach the Koran, women have to wear the veil and polygamy is legal. The book, which created a stir in France, went on sale Jan. 7. That […]