Contrary to what incompetent propagandists keep saying, it was not Gorbachev who ruined the Soviet Union, but the top of the state machinery who revolted against his democratic reforms. Boris Yeltsin’s deadly enmity played a disastrous role. Leonid Kravchuk, the former ideology chief of the Communist Party in Ukraine, made the second largest personal contribution […]
Some believe, or fear, that Modi is so powerful that he is a shoo-in for a second term in 2019. But a year in office has made it apparent that Modi’s mind is too old for the composite mind of India. In 2014, a youth wave voted Modi into power. It does not seem impossible […]
For better or for worse, the British empire was the most important thing the British ever did. It altered the course of history across the globe and shaped the modern world. It also led to the huge enrichment of Britain, just as, conversely, it led to the impoverishment of much of the rest of the […]
The inability of the world’s second-biggest economy, its representatives and its leaders to communicate and interact with the world is plain bad news for everybody. If you are not able to tell your story, people tend to make up their own tales. Perceptions matter and as Beijing would know, the Chinese aren’t the most loved […]
Beijing’s reading of history is intended to serve two purposes: to emphasize the war guilt of Japan, China’s archrival, and elevate the role of the Chinese Communist Party in defeating Japanese militarism. Both support President Xi Jinping’s aspirations for China to throw aside the postwar order in Asia and assert itself more vigorously. Read Here […]
Chinese civilization has historically been centered on its fertile east. Its expansion into the deserts of Central Asia creates fresh geopolitical opportunities for Beijing—and new dangers. Read Here – The National Interest
In 1981, Jimmy Carter said the world could never know West Germany’s role in the negotiations for the release of 52 hostages from the US Embassy in Tehran. New research sheds light on the important part the country played in ending the crisis. Read Here – Der Spiegel
What is this culture that everyone in Java speaks of? In the nation’s most populous island, syncretism is locked into the DNA. It is bizarre for the Javanese to think of their religion and their cultural history as incompatible; Hindu stories are part of their legacy, even though their religious affiliation might lie elsewhere. Read […]
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the India-Pakistan war of 1965. Fought in the middle of a period bookended by the humiliating defeat against China in 1962 and decisive victory against Pakistan in 1971, the 1965 war has had little resonance in our collective memory or written history. It is interesting, therefore, that the government […]
Whether its central claim is an inscrutable dream of religiously legitimated sovereignty or a malleable delusion, the appeal of ISIS is easily abstracted from motives available to outsiders. It is, in the incisive words of the New York artist Molly Crabapple, a ‘cosplay Caliphate’, a dress-up festival of blood-soaked nostalgia whose very pretensions to antiquity […]
looking beyond borders 