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Trying to Understand the World

Trying to Understand...
A Week Off And A New Language See you again soon
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
The Rise of Extractive Politics It's about having small expectations.
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
A Short Essay About A Long-Playing Record One I bought fifty years ago.
9 months ago
Trying to Understand...
Things Are Falling Apart ... And the centre's not looking too good, either.
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
Into the Waste Land Nothing connects.
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
War Is Complicated. And not just the fighting bit.
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
Honesty: What's In It For Me? First, do lots of harm.
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
China And Russia Walk Into A Room. And don't say a word about Europe.
8 months ago
Trying to Understand...
Useless in Gaza As always, if you don't know what you're doing.
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
Too Much of Not A Lot Winning the day and losing the war.
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
Teach Your Children .... Not to be afraid of moral relativism.
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
Let's Hear It For The "Underlying Causes." Here's the answer. What was the question again?
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
We Are All Civilisational States It's just that some people don't realise it.
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
The Year's Midnight. Kindness can be a revolutionary act.
over a year ago
Trying to Understand...
One Way Or Another .... We're going to get you.
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
The Threat of Back to Normal Global power has always been distributed.
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
Let's Be Enemies Since it seems to be the fashion these days.
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
Understanding What's Happening in France. The kinetic phase may come next.
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
Ukraine In NATO Would Be A Disaster ... But not necessarily for the reasons you think.
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
Another Of My Essays In French And some odds and ends.
7 months ago
Trying to Understand...
The Third World War Has Been Cancelled. It was all too difficult, finally.
8 months ago
Trying to Understand...
Games Nations Play. But they forget the people and the Street.
9 months ago
Trying to Understand...
Service to what nation? Why people should stop talking about conscription.
7 months ago
Trying to Understand...
If We Had More Than a Hammer ... We might not be in this mess.
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
Peter Pan goes to Ukraine Some people never grow up.
over a year ago
Trying to Understand...
Their Enemies The Russians But what about the rest of us?
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
How About a Victory for the Left Occasionally? Here are a few modest ideas.
over a year ago
Trying to Understand...
So They Want Negotiations, Now. Have they any idea what they are talking about?
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
They Say They Want Rearmament .... We-ell, you know ....
over a year ago
Trying to Understand...
Round Two? There Is No Round Two. Game pretty much over in Ukraine.
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
Will it Bend or Will it Break? The international system, that is.
over a year ago
Trying to Understand...
And Now for Something Completely Different. Am I me? Are You you? ?
over a year ago
Trying to Understand...
Little People With Agency. No, not that Agency.
5 months ago
Trying to Understand...
Reality Would Like A Word. Paging Tom and Daisy Buchanan
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
The Evils Of Professionalism In politics, anyway.
8 months ago
Trying to Understand...
Books To Help Us Understand The World? Well, a few, anyway. And a bit.
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
Can't Do, Won't Do! But striking poses is fun and easy.
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
Everything is (Somewhat) Connected. But some things are more connected than others.
over a year ago
Trying to Understand...
Don't Give Peace Too Many Chances. Nothing is more dangerous than a flawed peace treaty.
over a year ago
Trying to Understand...
It's War, Josep, But Not As We Know It Trying to understand what Ukraine is all about.
over a year ago
Trying to Understand...
The Modern World Is Boring. Where are the heroes and the adventures now?
8 months ago
Trying to Understand...
People, States and Borders. And other dubious ideas.
6 months ago
Trying to Understand...
Macron is Safe for the Moment But the future worries me.
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
A Fistful of Clockwork Oranges What's it going to be, then?
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
You And Whose Army? NATO would do well to stay out of Ukraine.
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
The Year of Failing To Understand. Not your usual end-of-year review.
2 months ago
Trying to Understand...
I Hate My Job And I Want To Cry. Tried chopping wood and carrying water?
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
NATO's Phantom Armies. And the ghost of Carl von Clausewitz.
9 months ago
Trying to Understand...
The West is Weak Where it Matters ... ...and some of the consequences are not obvious.
over a year ago
Trying to Understand...
The Past Is Another Country. A book review from the future.
7 months ago
Trying to Understand...
Don't Confuse Me With Facts. They know what they think.
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
A Short Service Announcement. From this week, and on an experimental basis, I’m enabling paid subscriptions for those who may be...
a year ago
47
a year ago
From this week, and on an experimental basis, I’m enabling paid subscriptions for those who may be interested. The essays themselves will continue to be entirely free, and I don’t have plans to produce subscriber-only material. I’ve also set up a Buy Me a Coffee cup.
Trying to Understand...
The Machine Stops. And fiddling won't fix it.
5 months ago
Trying to Understand...
Ukraine and the end of "Europe." Nation-states were the problem: supranationality was not the answer.
over a year ago
Trying to Understand...
The Sense Of An Ending. But right back where we started from.
6 months ago
Trying to Understand...
No Cheers for Authoritarianism Remind me what it was, exactly ....
over a year ago
Trying to Understand...
Externalising Our Hatreds. It's Ukraine and Gaza. Again.
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
No End Of A Lesson. If we can only learn it.
4 months ago
Trying to Understand...
The Missile Will Always Get Through. But who is prepared to admit it?
2 months ago
Trying to Understand...
Out Of Control. Fear the worst, hope for the best.
4 months ago
Trying to Understand...
Another Of My Essays in French And some bits and pieces.
5 months ago
Trying to Understand...
When Ukraine Is Over ... How will they turn out the lights?
a month ago
Trying to Understand...
The Politics of Exhaustion. And the exhaustion of politics.
7 months ago
Trying to Understand...
The Long Run. The future belongs to them.
a month ago
Trying to Understand...
Ukraine: A Guide For The Perplexed Part One, anyway. More next week.
10 months ago
Trying to Understand...
In Praise of the Preterite Or, why you should read "Gravity’s Rainbow" fifty years later.
over a year ago
Trying to Understand...
Arming Ourselves Against The Future. With a few more books and a few old ideas.
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
Papa To The Rescue. And stop saying "it's not fair!"
5 months ago
Trying to Understand...
No More Heroes. Pity the nation that needs someone else's.
3 months ago
Trying to Understand...
What Can You Do When You Don't Have A Culture? Not that much, actually.
6 months ago
Trying to Understand...
No Left Turn Workers and Peasants we are not.
6 months ago
Trying to Understand...
Le Missile passera toujours ... mais qui est prêt à l’admettre ? Another of my essays in French.
a month ago
Trying to Understand...
L'Étrange défaite: Réalité et réalisme Another of my essays in French.
2 months ago
Trying to Understand...
Russia/Ukraine is not a sports competition. Victory in war requires a bit of thought.
over a year ago
Trying to Understand...
La politique de l’épuisement et l’épuisement de la politique. Another of my essays in French.
2 months ago
Trying to Understand...
The Water Is Rising. But slowly ...
4 months ago
Trying to Understand...
Stop Making Sense. There are no "why"s in our world.
10 months ago
Trying to Understand...
A Strange Defeat. A failure of understanding in Ukraine.
3 months ago
Trying to Understand...
War in Dreamland Against mythology, reality itself contends in vain.
7 months ago
Trying to Understand...
Things Don't Always Get Better. And "Against Recentism," while we're at it.
4 months ago
Trying to Understand...
The Coming Of Neo-Tribalism. Of honour, gangsters, nomadic tribes and of course identity politics.
8 months ago
Trying to Understand...
In the Shallows Of The Deep State. But is there anything there?
2 months ago
Trying to Understand...
The Wages Of Fear Things are going to get sweaty, soon.
10 months ago
Trying to Understand...
Unlike For Like. BRICS and how international institutions work.
3 months ago
Trying to Understand...
Only Connect .... We are lost in a haunted wood.
4 months ago
Trying to Understand...
Tune Out, Turn Off, Delete. You don't need to know that.
11 months ago
Trying to Understand...
This Changes Everything! Well, it depends what you're trying to do.
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
I Have No Brain But I Must Scream. But why aren't people in other countries listening?
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
Another Of My Essays In French And some associated reflections.
3 months ago
Trying to Understand...
Ukraine: A Further Guide for the Perplexed. They didn't know. But they know now.
9 months ago
Trying to Understand...
The Sword Is Mightier... ...than the pen. In Ukraine anyway.
a month ago
Trying to Understand...
Will The West Eat Itself? Yes. It's derivatives all the way down.
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
Dealing With Foreigners ... Is more complicated than you might think.
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
Bringing It All Back Home If we can't patronise them over there, we'll do it over here.
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
A Postcard From The Far Side of Despair. Or, a meditation on bloody-mindedness for Ash Wednesday.
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
A Wasting Asset? Europe turns away from America.
3 months ago
Trying to Understand...
Candles and Kalshnikovs. Please help us not to understand.
2 months ago
Trying to Understand...
That's The Truth? In politics, well, it depends.
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
The Revolt of the Outer Party. Meanwhile, Everyman can get stuffed.
10 months ago
Trying to Understand...
Rules, Rules Rules Because that's all they can do.
11 months ago
Trying to Understand...
France Saves Europe. Again. In a manner of speaking.
11 months ago
Trying to Understand...
The Obligatory End-of-Year Essay. But do me a favour, and read it anyway.
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
No Way Out Some of the world's problems have no solution.
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
War, Peace, And That Other Thing. Understanding political violence.
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
The Newer World Order. But can they get their heads round it?
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
The Diversity Paradox. It's about dignity, efficiency, and things like that.
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
The Power Of Absent Things. It explains a lot about Ukraine.
11 months ago
Trying to Understand...
Another Of My Essays in French And some bits and pieces of news.
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
When The Music's Over ... Turn out the lights.
11 months ago
Trying to Understand...
The Wrong Stuff Don't even think about rebuilding western militaries.
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
The Performance is Over Even if the artists don't realise it.
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
The Curse Of Zhou Bai Den. Or, masochism for fun and profit.
3 weeks ago
Trying to Understand...
A Clash Of Symbols They are quite serious, actually.
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
My Substack in Other Languages. Starting with Spanish.
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
What's Left ... And What's Left? A (probably-doomed) attempt at a bit of clarity.
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
Getting Used To Being Weak. It's worse than you probably imagine.
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
Another Of My Essays in French Le choc des symboles; ils sont vraiment sérieux.
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
Stories We Tell Each Other. Because contingency frightens us.
a week ago
Trying to Understand...
One Of My Essays In Dutch. I’m pleased to say that one of my readers in the Netherlands has been kind enough to produce and...
a year ago
11
a year ago
I’m pleased to say that one of my readers in the Netherlands has been kind enough to produce and send to me a translation into Dutch of my recent essay “What’s Left and What’s Left?” The translator has elected to remain anonymous, but I’m extremely grateful, and please join me in...
Trying to Understand...
Stone, Scissors, Paper. Or, Europe after Ukraine.
2 weeks ago
Trying to Understand...
Going to Pieces Slowly... And then what?
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
It's All About Them. But the Western Security Complex thinks it's all about Us.
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
So Where Do We Go From Here? That's a good question.
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
The End of Power Projection? We can't get there from here, anymore.
a year ago
Trying to Understand...
What We Talk About, When We Talk About Talks. The End may be further away than you think.
3 days ago