Golestan Palace in Tehran, a world heritage site, and buildings in historic city of Isfahan harmed, despite Unesco sending coordinates Julian Borger and Deepa Parent The governor of the historic Iranian city of Isfahan has accused the US and Israel of a “declaration of war on a civilization” as heritage sites across the country suffer… Read More Dismay as ancient heritage sites across Iran damaged in US-Israel bombing
Stephen Harding on the Modernist Poet and His Fascist Politics By the spring of 1939, the widely acknowledged dean of Anglo-American Modernist poetry, fifty-three-year-old Ezra Pound, had lived in Europe for three decades. After leaving the United States in 1908 at the age of twenty- three, the poet had initially settled in London, then moved… Read More Literary Celebrity, Mussolini’s Mouthpiece, and American Traitor: Who Was Ezra Pound?
By Dilip Simeon Ideology is the most devilish variation of the lie: Hannah Arendt To speak of reaction is to counterpose it with progress. This terminology is not helpful. Stable issues of political life, such as legitimate authority, justice, transparent government, clarity on the means vs ends problem; along with issues of character such as… Read More Domination and chaos: India’s radical conservatism
Ernst Junger (1895-1998): Jünger found his countrymen’s discriminatory treatment of French Jews unacceptable. In his Parisian diaries, the writer wrote on 7 June 1942 that he had encountered for the first time the yellow star carried by three little girls who were passing by in the Rue Royale, and that he considered that day as fundamental in his personal history,… Read More An Aesthete at War
Since 9/11, the US has engaged in three full-scale wars, bombing at least 10 countries under four presidents By Marium Ali Despite promising to end United States involvement in costly and destructive foreign wars, President Donald Trump, together with Israel, has launched a massive military assault on Iran, targeting its leadership and nuclear and missile infrastructure.… Read More How many countries has the US bombed since 2001, and how much has it cost?
The ‘indispensble nation‘ marches on, toward a sinkhole of crashed empires, killing and maiming along the way ++++++++++++++++++++ Self-shafting America Homeland Empire Unsolicited thoughts from an elder citizen Natalia Ginzburg: Our Monstrous Ideas Biblical Archaeology and the Judeo-Christian legends / The Deconstruction of the Walls of Jericho Zionism Breaks Hundreds of prominent Jews and Israelis urge world powers to… Read More America’s Abyss of Uselessness
Alfred McCoy, author most recently of the history book Cold War on Five Continents, makes clear today, by now Donald Trump and decline have (or at least should have) become literal synonyms in his increasingly nightmarish second term in the Oval Office. In almost every imaginable way, he now seems intent on taking this country down… Read More America’s Date With Destiny
The Captive Mind, Czesław Miłosz’s searing anatomy of authoritarianism, highlights the dangers of self-deception in the name of ‘realism’ The Captive Mind, Czesław Miłosz’s searing anatomy of authoritarianism, tells a story drawn from an older Polish novel by Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, Insatiability. Europe is about to be overrun by a Sino-Mongolian army that dominates from… Read More Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: From a book on authoritarianism, lessons on ‘realism’ for India
Isabel Jacobs “Be human, after all!” – “But I don’t want to be human!” Bertolt Brecht, Mahagonny, cited by Kojève Until 2025, the name “Alexandre Kojève” was a paradox. A philosopher often invoked yet rarely read – a famous enigma. For decades, Kojève’s mythical reputation rested on rumors and anecdotes orbiting his Hegel seminar of the 1930s.… Read More A Famous Enigma: On Alexandre Kojève: An Intellectual Biography and “The Life and Thought of Alexandre Kojève”
How a Washington Post columnist laundered the Sangh’s violent history Dhirendra K Jha THE RASHTRIYA SWAYAMSEVAK SANGH has been on a spree, celebrating a century of its existence. Over this period, it has demonstrated its ability to patiently expand, mobilise and grow. Thousands of people, including the former president Ram Nath Kovind, attended the hundredth… Read More Manufacturing Legitimacy
After the truth-shower 