The deal was simple. She was a 23-year-old single mother of two children in Sweden during the early 1950s. Hindered by a battle with alcoholism, she struggled to care for her children. Now, she had fallen pregnant for a third time. She was too young ...
Exhausted by centuries of imperialism, 19th-century Slavic intellectuals proposed “Pan-Slavism”—or the unity of all Slavic peoples along shared cultural and political lines into a singular geopolitical bloc—as a defense against neighboring ag...
The death of Alexei Navalny unites the Russian resistance in a powerful act of collective grief Prelude The third of March, Boston Common, gloomy afternoon. I stand in front of the memorial clutching four yellow carnations, my eyes wet with tears. A ...
Uranium. Campaign checks. Oil. What’s really going on in Mali. France is at war. At the time of writing, 4,000 French soldiers are deployed in Azawad, the northern half of Mali, fighting a combination of Islamist and separatist insurgents who t...
Uranium. Campaign checks. Oil. What’s really going on in Mali. France is at war. At the time of writing, 4,000 French soldiers are deployed in Azawad, the northern half of Mali, fighting a combination of Islamist and separatist insurgents who t...
In his recent column on the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands dispute between China and Japan, Carter Johnson raises several interesting points. I agree with most of them, and after reading the article I found myself thinking on a historical analogy of the conf...
In his recent column on the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands dispute between China and Japan, Carter Johnson raises several interesting points. I agree with most of them, and after reading the article I found myself thinking on a historical analogy of the conf...
Last week I missed an important reason why Spain is in a state of absolute disarray. This of course is the growing strength of independence movements, both in the Basque Country (Euskadi) and Catalonia –which may have crossed the Rubicon in its dec...
Last week I missed an important reason why Spain is in a state of absolute disarray. This of course is the growing strength of independence movements, both in the Basque Country (Euskadi) and Catalonia –which may have crossed the Rubicon in its dec...
There are cultural moments when I switch into impartial observer, not the usual crazy-eyed denizen, of the blogosphere left. Say, perhaps, when the Commentariat explodes with excitement curiosity regarding whether a Pope might imminently be thrown ...
There are cultural moments when I switch into impartial observer, not the usual crazy-eyed denizen, of the blogosphere left. Say, perhaps, when the Commentariat explodes with excitement curiosity regarding whether a Pope might imminently be thrown ...
In reading the New York Times yesterday, it struck me that following the news about Syria is becoming almost unbearably frustrating. More and more are dying, and there still doesn’t seem to be an end in sight. Instead, we are treated to an endl...
In reading the New York Times yesterday, it struck me that following the news about Syria is becoming almost unbearably frustrating. More and more are dying, and there still doesn’t seem to be an end in sight. Instead, we are treated to an endl...
There is a famous Spanish saying, éramos muchos y parió la abuela –we were too many, and then grandma had a baby. In military jargon this is summarized as a clusterfuck: a situation in which everything, everywhere, falls apart at the same time. A...
There is a famous Spanish saying, éramos muchos y parió la abuela –we were too many, and then grandma had a baby. In military jargon this is summarized as a clusterfuck: a situation in which everything, everywhere, falls apart at the same time. A...
Fears of ‘Grexit’ has yet to wane, but the press is talking about another country’s possible retreat from the EU—Britain. The Economist claims that ‘Brexit’ has become “increasingly possible;” a columnist at Reuters even warns, “Bre...
Fears of ‘Grexit’ has yet to wane, but the press is talking about another country’s possible retreat from the EU—Britain. The Economist claims that ‘Brexit’ has become “increasingly possible;” a columnist at Reuters even warns, “Bre...
New euro Bills are set to enter circulation in May 2013. Instead of the now familiar imaginary architecture, these bills will feature “a hologram and watermark of Europa, the Phoenician noblewoman who gave the continent its name. In Greek myth, she...
New euro Bills are set to enter circulation in May 2013. Instead of the now familiar imaginary architecture, these bills will feature “a hologram and watermark of Europa, the Phoenician noblewoman who gave the continent its name. In Greek myth, she...
I was hoping to stop writing on austerity and switch to nationalism and the extreme right in Europe. However, France’s recognition of the Syrian National Council (SNC) as the sole representative of the Syrian state/people has forced me to take a Mi...
I was hoping to stop writing on austerity and switch to nationalism and the extreme right in Europe. However, France’s recognition of the Syrian National Council (SNC) as the sole representative of the Syrian state/people has forced me to take a Mi...
If Tuesday’s elections represented the triumph of liberalism in the US, no similar trend is to be found in Europe. Far from capitalizing -irony intended- on a crisis brought upon by markets-turned-casinos, the center left in Europe has systematical...
If Tuesday’s elections represented the triumph of liberalism in the US, no similar trend is to be found in Europe. Far from capitalizing -irony intended- on a crisis brought upon by markets-turned-casinos, the center left in Europe has systematical...
In my last eurocrisis rant I argued three changes were necessary for the EU to begin crawling its way out of the hole it has dug itself into. These were viewing debt as an economic instead of a moral problem, considering the situation a political ins...
In my last eurocrisis rant I argued three changes were necessary for the EU to begin crawling its way out of the hole it has dug itself into. These were viewing debt as an economic instead of a moral problem, considering the situation a political ins...
Yesterday, the French government signed a deal to provide Peugeot-Citroën, Europe’s second largest automaker, with €7 billion (or $9 billion) in credit guarantees. This is yet another example of government intervention in industrial sectors stru...
Yesterday, the French government signed a deal to provide Peugeot-Citroën, Europe’s second largest automaker, with €7 billion (or $9 billion) in credit guarantees. This is yet another example of government intervention in industrial sectors stru...