Jack Dickens

I am delighted to announce that my chapter on espionage in Central Asia and the Great Game has been published as part of this wonderful collection, ‘Spies in History’. It will be up on @engelsbergideas.bsky.social soon. A big thank you to @paullay.bsky.social and Lars Molin for the opportunity.

The cross-border friendships that sustained opposition in the Soviet bloc suggest that not all is lost for Asia’s new generation of activists. Joshua Wong, heir to the Cold War dissidents | Jeffrey Wasserstrom engelsbergideas.com/notebook/jos...

Sixty years on, the Swedish filmmaker’s masterpiece remains intimate, stark and utterly compelling. Persona: Ingmar Bergman’s stone-cold classic | @paullay.bsky.social engelsbergideas.com/notebook/per...

AI-powered earbuds that translate in real time are remarkable tools. But doing the hard work of learning another language offers something more: a new way of seeing the world. Why AI translation is no substitute for learning a language | Caitlin Allen engelsbergideas.com/notebook/why...

Jan Rüger’s erudite study makes a compelling case for seeing the bond between Britain and Germany as a driving force in European history. Britain and Germany: Europe’s original special relationship | Brendan Simms engelsbergideas.com/reviews/brit...

I very much enjoyed this conversation with Paul Josephson exploring the history behind Russia’s war on Ukrainian science:

The socialite and civil servant was a devoted assistant to three very different foreign secretaries during the Second World War and its aftermath. Valentine Lawford, the hidden hand behind Britain’s wartime diplomacy | @lordrickettsp.bsky.social engelsbergideas.com/portraits/va...

Paul Josephson traces the historical roots of Vladimir Putin’s aggressive Russification policies. 🎧The EI Podcast: Russia’s war on Ukrainian science engelsbergideas.com/podcast/russ...

From the crude liquids of the ancient world to the refined commercial product of the 21st century, the story of wine has been intimately bound with that of human civilisation. How wine conquered the globe | @henrygjeffreys.bsky.social engelsbergideas.com/reviews/how-...

In capturing the threads of shared culture and profound differences among a far-flung people, the photojournalist Ergun Çağatay sheds light on what it means to be Turkic. Ergun Çağatay, bridge to the vast Turkic world | @edentravels.bsky.social engelsbergideas.com/notebook/erg...

During the Second World War, Britain learnt that a propaganda campaign can only be won with accurate and credible reporting. Britain’s information war against Nazi Germany | Steven Casey engelsbergideas.com/notebook/bri...

The United States is reviewing its military commitments in East Asia. Seoul and Tokyo must learn to compete for Washington's support. Japan and South Korea must master transactional diplomacy | Edward Howell engelsbergideas.com/notebook/jap...

The Irish-born Whig’s time as a diplomat formed his view of Denmark as a cautionary tale for the English: of how a country descends into absolutism. Robert Molesworth, denouncer of Danish tyranny | Felice Basbøll engelsbergideas.com/portraits/ro...

Nobel Prize-winning economist Daron Acemoglu’s call for a ‘working-class liberalism’ fails to address the underlying cause of liberal democracy’s woes: a lack of productivity. The wrong prescription for liberal democracy’s ills | Marc Levinson engelsbergideas.com/essays/the-w...

Transcendentalism, the visionary philosophy championed by figures such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, is the yin of the American Revolution. Concord’s second revolution | Richard Marranca engelsbergideas.com/essays/conco...

‘Not that long ago, history really was an important part of the way we argued and thought about who we were politically.’ Emily Jones on Britain’s presentist political culture. 🎧The EI Podcast: Reinventing Disraeli engelsbergideas.com/podcast/rein...

The absurd theatre of Russia’s choice-free election | Egor Sokolov engelsbergideas.com/notebook/the...

The Mecca Agreement could work as part of a web of narrower, overlapping alliances better suited to the region than any grand alliance. The Middle East’s coalitions of convenience | Ibrahim Al-Marashi and Tanya Goudsouzian engelsbergideas.com/notebook/the...

Small modular reactors (SMRs) were first conceived for military use and deployed on polar bases. Seventy years on, their record remains dismal. SMRs: a short history of a nuclear pipe dream | Paul Josephson engelsbergideas.com/essays/smrs-...

John Coltrane was a spiritual searcher whose shimmering, joyful music pushed jazz to its limits. Coltrane, the acceptable face of the avant-garde | Max Mitchell engelsbergideas.com/notebook/col...

Finland’s Winter War has become a national legend, while the Baltic states’ surrender to Stalin in 1940 is remembered as a humiliation. But the story of Baltic submission is a myth. What if the Baltic states had resisted Stalin? | Gordon F. Sander engelsbergideas.com/notebook/wha...

Fifty years on, ‘I, Claudius’ remains a startling account of power, lust and statecraft. The rise and fall of Rome’s first family | @paullay.bsky.social engelsbergideas.com/notebook/the...

🎧The EI Podcast: Space and the new clash of civilisations Earlier this month, the US confirmed for the first time that it had deployed a space weapon in Earth’s orbit. John B. Sheldon and Jack Dickens discuss the fight for extraterrestrial supremacy. engelsbergideas.com/podcast/spac...

Historian James M. Scott describes America’s bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in harrowing detail, while highlighting Japan’s obduracy, even when faced with the prospect of total annihilation. Truman’s impossible atomic calculus | David Vaiani engelsbergideas.com/reviews/trum...

Simon Sebag Montefiore's wildly ambitious history of the region since 1900 is a richly illustrated guide to the law of unintended consequences. How the Middle East boiled over | James Barr engelsbergideas.com/reviews/how-...

The conventional narrative assumes economies can grow while using less energy. The opposite is happening. It is time for climate realism. The case for climate realism in an age of soaring energy demand | Dieter Helm engelsbergideas.com/essays/the-c...

The Cold War blind spots behind Iran’s rift with the West | Gill Bennett engelsbergideas.com/reviews/the-...

Who ruled the Middle East in 1900? Simon Sebag Montefiore narrates the decline of the Ottoman Empire and the rise of Saudi Arabia. 🎧The EI Podcast: The scramble for the Middle East audioboom.com/posts/895095...

Highly recommended (as is almost everything Engelsberg Ideas produces).

🎧The EI Podcast: The scramble for the Middle East Simon Sebag Montefiore speaks to Jack Dickens about the struggle for power in the world’s most volatile region. engelsbergideas.com/podcast/the-...

The aspirations of modern China are rooted in President Xi's historical fictions combined with Marxist beliefs, a Leninist mentality and fervent nationalism. A world captured by China | Michael Sheridan engelsbergideas.com/reviews/a-wo...

How did Machiavelli’s republicanism accommodate religion? Stephen Bowd explains. 🎧The EI Podcast: Machiavelli still matters audioboom.com/posts/894356...

The rising antagonism between Israel and Turkey could lead to a catastrophic conflict, transforming the balance of power across Eurasia. The coming Turkish-Israeli struggle for supremacy | Sumantra Maitra engelsbergideas.com/notebook/the...

Reconstructing the life of the African ruler Juba II from 15 objects, as Andrew Kenrick does in 'Rex Juba', shows both the appeal and the limits of narrative history. King Juba in fragments | Orlando Gibbs engelsbergideas.com/reviews/king...

Stephen Bowd on Niccolò Machiavelli’s preoccupation with human conflict. 🎧The EI Podcast: Machiavelli still matters audioboom.com/posts/894356...

The postwar US-led world order tamed efforts to redraw international boundaries by force, but eliminating such impulses entirely is not a realistic basis for a grand strategy. Revisionism reconsidered: grand strategy in a post-imperial age | Francis J. Gavin engelsbergideas.com/essays/revis...

The valiant contribution made by female secret agents to the resistance in Nazi-occupied Europe has been overlooked for too long. The women who waged secret war on the Nazis | @claremulley.bsky.social engelsbergideas.com/reviews/the-...

'De Gaulle: Résistance', the first instalment of Antonin Baudry's biopic of the Free French leader, is thrilling, historically convincing and, at times, rather moving. De Gaulle’s rise, fall and rise again | @paullay.bsky.social engelsbergideas.com/notebook/de-...

Great to review @drkatevigurs.bsky.social ‘s #WomenOfSOE for @engelsbergideas.bsky.social ‘a salutary reminder that women demonstrated the same courage, determination & ability as men, and that the resistance across enemy-occupied Europe would have looked very different without their service.’

🎧The EI Podcast: Journeys in Europe’s grey zone Hannah Lucinda Smith speaks to Caitlin Allen about how scrambles for power in Europe’s contested borderlands offer a glimpse of the continent’s future. engelsbergideas.com/podcast/jour...

Diplomatic deals based on the pursuit of short-term interests tend to be short-lived. The price of Trump’s transactional diplomacy | Ziyi Wang engelsbergideas.com/notebook/the...

The economic origins of the Great War warn that trading and financial links are not just a means to peace and prosperity – they can also be a source of tension and conflict. Did globalisation cause the First World War? | @duncanweldon.bsky.social engelsbergideas.com/reviews/did-...

The noble failure of Russia’s liberal reformers | Friedrich Asschenfeldt engelsbergideas.com/reviews/the-...

Jonathan Swift’s literary world | Derek Turner engelsbergideas.com/reviews/jona...

David Thomson recalls his first time seeing ‘Citizen Kane’. 🎧The EI Podcast: The entire history of cinema in one shot audioboom.com/posts/893928...

A new initiative to foster defence collaboration between government, universities and industry must not forget the role of the humanities. Britain needs to rediscover a more resilient statecraft | T.G. Otte engelsbergideas.com/notebook/bri...

The notion of a new world order shaped by the Global South, a reincarnation of the Third World, is a chimera. Middle-power dynamism is the surest way to preserve the Global West in a new form. The Global South: the 21st century’s great utopia | Stephen Kotkin engelsbergideas.com/essays/the-g...

A compelling film by the Ukrainian filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa captures the grotesque spectacle that anticipated Stalin’s purge of his rivals. The first Moscow show trial | @paullay.bsky.social engelsbergideas.com/notebook/the...

My 'Engelsberg Ideas' review of Hester Grant's evocative 'Twitnam Summer', about a memorable summer meeting of John Gay, Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift engelsbergideas.com/reviews/jona... @engelsbergideas.bsky.social

The trauma of the Vietnam War dominated American culture for decades, yet the nation's longest war – in Afghanistan – has largely vanished. Why? The forgotten Forever War | Jasmine Bhatia engelsbergideas.com/notebook/the...