Iran

One of the very first things you notice after arriving in Iran is just how much damn history they have there. The country is not only awash with the remains of ancient traditions and dynasties but marked by an intense sense of continuity with them. Portraits of martyrs line the…

Utopia for Realists

When you think of the Dutch, mountain ranges are rarely the first thing that comes to mind. Yet that was the image I was left with at the end of Utopia for Realists, a policy manifesto by the Dutch journalist Rutger Bregman. A vast alpine landscape, plummeting ravines and soaring…

The Dispensable Nation

In The Dispensable Nation, international relations academic and former State Department advisor Vali Nasr tackles one of the wickedest problems in the world with aplomb, producing a sharp and lucid summary which deserves to be required reading for anyone wishing to have an opinion on the modern Middle East. In…

Where Wizards Stay Up Late

With more than a passing similarity to the omnipresent and omniscient gods of old, it's hardly surprising that the Internet (and its Old Testament precursor, the ARPANET) comes replete with its fair share of contradictory creation myths. By far the most famous of these, certainly the one I'd been told…

Syria

First things first - this is not a book on the Syrian Civil War. In an age where the highest editorial virtue appears to be velocity rather than depth, even avid news consumers could be understood for failing to remember that Syria has played a vital role in world history…

Theories of International Politics and Zombies

Obvious as it may seem once stated, it's easy to forget a simple fact about professional academics: They're mostly nerds[1]. Dan Drezner, professor of international politics at Tufts and member of the prestigious Council on Foreign Relations, demonstrates this plainly in his witty tutorial Theories of International Politics and…

Days of Rage

One of my absolute favourite places on the internet is The Atavist Magazine. A rare cut above the fleeting distractions of thinkpiece journalism, the Atavist publishes focused, polished gems of long-form journalism, intensely researched and powerfully written, on fascinating yet esoteric stories from long forgotten history. Bryan Burrough’s Days…

Condemned to Crisis?

Another Lowy Institute monograph from the publishing initiative that gave us The Embarrassed Colonialist, Condemned to Crisis seeks to explain the fractious relationship between Australia and Indonesia, as seen through the eyes of foreign policy veteran, Ken Ward. Despite the forward-looking subtitle, Condemned is mostly diagnostic, with little in the…