NB: This is an astonishing declaration, The most outstanding Rusian conservative of the twentieth century, an ex-Red Army officer, imprisoned in the Gulag for eight years for criticising Stalin, expelled from his homeland, and winner of the Nobel Prize, still invoking the democratic spirit of the soviets of 1917; and asking for civil dialogue amongst… Read More Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: Letter to the Soviet Leaders (1974)
Lionel Trilling crystallizes the cynical Cold War liberalism that sacrificed idealism for self-restraint.. Organized as much against the left as the right, these defenses not only rang hollow; they have failed to forestall the political crisis they promised to transcend. The result has been the reversal of Cold War liberal triumph into today’s mood of… Read More Liberalism in Mourning
First posted October 11, 2012 Paper presented to the International Conference: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: The Course Of His Life In The Context Of Greater Time 5-6 December 2008; Moscow NB: This is a brilliant and thought-provoking essay on the historic, literary and philosophical significance of the writings of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, one of the foremost witnesses of the history of… Read More Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: Historian of Decline and Prophet of Revival. By Madhavan Palat
Disaster and intrigue in China after the cultural revolution Rana Mitter On 12 May 2008, a devastating earthquake ripped apart Wenchuan county in Sichuan province, southwest China. Military and civilian rescuers arrived swiftly at the scene, saving countless lives. Although more than 68,000 people died, the number of fatalities could have been much higher. An… Read More The Death of Mao by James Palmer: Review
First posted March 26, 2014 The Grand Inquisitor and the Holy Fool The Indian Council for Historical Research Foundation Day At the Nehru Memorial Museum & Library / 27 March 2014 at 5.30 pm Dostoevsky was a remarkably modern thinker who may seem to have laboured hard to obscure the fact. He grappled with the… Read More The Grand Inquisitor and the Holy Fool: Madhavan Palat’s lecture on Dostoevsky
First posted September 23, 2016 Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958-1962 – by Yang Jisheng Reviewed by Jonathan Mirsky ‘I call this book Tombstone. It is a tombstone for my father who died of starvation in 1959, for the thirty-six million Chinese who also starved to death, for the system that brought about their death, and perhaps for… Read More ‘Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958-1962’ – by Yang Jisheng
First posted September 29, 2015 The appearance of the law must be upheld / specially when its being broken. Gangs of New York (2002) Before the Law by Franz Kafka Translated by Ian Johnston (NB: This parable first appeared in 1915, and became a part of Kafka’s book The Trial) Before the law sits a gatekeeper. To this… Read More Before the Law. A parable by Franz Kafka
First posted November 22, 2016 NB: Franz Kafka’s A Hunger Artist was written in 1922 and published in a collection also entitled A Hunger Artist. Here is a parable for our times. DS During these last decades the interest in professional fasting has markedly diminished. It used to pay very well to stage such great performances under one’s own management, but today… Read More A Hunger Artist. By Franz Kafka (1922)
NB: This is one of the most moving tributes to Albert Camus that I have read. It is also crystal clear. DS He had succeeded in saying in his fevered way and in an argument as taut as a bow why, despite the fury and horror of history, man is an absolute; and he had… Read More ALBERT CAMUS: by Nicola Chiaromonte
By Daniel Johnson Spinoza: Life and Legacy, by Jonathan Israel In mediaeval scholasticism, Aristotle’s reputation was such that he was usually referred to simply as “the Philosopher”. Amongst the moderns, this book makes the case for treating Baruch Spinoza (1632–77) similarly. If there is no philosopher but Spinoza, Jonathan Israel is his prophet. Spinoza: Life and… Read More A brilliant biography of an elusive genius
