Red Spies and Lies
Clay Risen’s new book about the American “Red Scare” emphasises the injustices of anti-communism but minimises the true extent and danger of communist infiltration.
Ronald Radosh
· 23 min read
Narrated
A collection of 128 posts
Stalin, Putin, and the Corruption of History
The history of Soviet totalitarianism is now being rewritten.
Andy Owen
· 13 min read
Too Many Moons
This week’s announcement that Saturn has 274 officially recognised ‘moons’ raises the question of whether that word needs a more restrictive definition.
Lawrence M. Krauss
· 6 min read
The Many Faces of ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’
Alexandre Dumas’s novel is by turns an adventure story, a paean to bourgeois values, and a Greek epic. No wonder it continues to fascinate.
Stewart Slater
· 9 min read
The Green Energy Delusion
The current approach to energy and environmental policy isn’t just unsustainable—it has put us on a collision course with reality.
Paul Brown
· 14 min read
Monogamy and the Making of Western Civilisation
The institution of monogamy in Classical Greece may have led to a host of phenomena that shaped the modern West: from individualism and abstract thinking to liberalism and democracy.
James Kierstead
· 8 min read
A Kinder, Gentler Eliminationism
Peter Beinart has responded to the 7 October massacre and subsequent Gaza war with a deeply duplicitous book.
Susie Linfield
· 18 min read
Burning the Quran
Are we going to defend liberty, openness, and democracy, or are we going to allow radical theocrats and their ideological allies to try to crush our hard-won freedoms?
John Aziz
· 6 min read
Sage of Sex and Psyche
Remembering Don Symons (1942–2024).
Steven Pinker
· 12 min read
Evolutionary Psychology in the Humanities: Shakespeare’s Othello
Othello and Iago represent two enduring behaviours whose conflicts have shaped much of humanity’s theory of mind and moral emotions to the present day.
Helen Pluckrose
· 17 min read
The Open Society and Its New Enemies
What Karl Popper’s classic can teach us about the threats facing democracies today.
Matt Johnson
· 27 min read
The Thunder from Down Under
If Bach was the sound of God whistling while he worked, AC/DC was the sound of God ordering another round in a strip club on Saturday night.
George Case
· 9 min read
The Ceasefire Deal
As Israel and Hamas begin to implement the ceasefire deal, both the immediate and the longer term future remain unclear.
Benny Morris
· 12 min read
The Tyranny of Fragility
How Alexis de Tocqueville foretold the rise of victimhood culture.
Samuel Veissière
· 8 min read
This Is Not Late-Stage Capitalism
Automation, artificial intelligence, and robotics are set to redefine the relationship between labour, capital, and production.
John Aziz
· 7 min read