Teresa Bejan’s history of equality before egalitarianism locates the origins of a modern conviction in the England of the 1640s. It is an exceptional work that marks a new beginning. A Quaker meeting, ...

The Fifth Republic’s deteriorating fiscal situation offers the strongest parallel with the waning years of the Ancien Régime.

Ukrainian soldiers returning from the frontline reveal that it is now a vast space policed by drones, in which death is a constant presence. An artillery-cratered crossroads in Donbas. Credit: Andrii ...

A century ago, a Baltic fishing village began its transformation into a bustling port. Gdynia embodied interwar Poland’s modernising ambitions, but it could not guarantee the country’s security. The ...

Sufi thinkers such as ʿAbd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi championed toleration and independence of thought long before Europeans brought their Enlightenment to the Muslim world. A key early figure in the ...

The new Nobel laureate has made a virtue of crossing boundaries and expanding the reach of the lyric sensibility. Canadian poet Anne Carson. Credit: TT News Agency Like any self-appointed highest ...

Russia’s rulers have long met outbreaks of disease with secrecy, at catastrophic cost to their own citizens. The official response to a plague-researcher’s death in Siberia follows the same pattern.

Kyiv’s unorthodox approach to reforming its public institutions has been to bring in experts from outside. But they will only have an impact if given the right powers. Kyiv came up with a rather ...

Though the Vikings are famous for their long sea journeys, most of them lived settled lives as farmers. The archaeologist Neil Price believes their stories are just as interesting. Alan Sorrell's ...

A record victory for Latvia’s pro-Ukraine prime minister was accompanied by a surge for populist parties in the country’s lowest-ever general election turnout. The Latvian parliament on election day.

No painter took the passing pleasures of Parisian life more seriously than Renoir. 'Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette' by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1876. Credit: ArchiVerse Paris during Pierre-Auguste ...