Book Review: Sasha Sokolov’s ‘A School for Fools’
A Soviet underground classic is back in print. In a “School for Fools”, fighting conformity requires confronting the Soviet system—and our inner demons.
The Reckless Power Behind the Throne
King Salman’s son Mohammad seems to be piloting Saudi Arabia into a series of ever more risky adventures. At the heart of all Sunni Saudi Arabia’s current woes is its longstanding sectarian and political rivalry with the Shi’a republic of Iran.
The Nobel Laureate vs. the Dictator
Nobel Prize Winner Svetlana Alexievich is challenging both a dictator and a bad case of historical amnesia. Svetlana Alexievich criticizes dictatorship and dictators of all kinds, including Lukashenko. She debunks their fraudulent elections and wars.
A Roadmap for Peace in South Sudan
As the world’s youngest country enters its third year of civil war, there are new hopes for a durable peace.
The Geopolitics of Cheap Oil
Economists said the market would save the planet. It didn’t. The nosedive in oil prices has been good news for a lot of people and a lot of countries. But it’s not good news for the planet.
Islamic Reformation?
We keep hearing calls for an ‘Islamic Reformation’, but the Protestant Reformation was not a liberal enterprise: it was the original ‘fundamentalism’, whence the label now applied to Islam.
Fiscal crisis in Brazil: a tale of two inflations
Surviving an impeachment will be a herculean task for Dilma Rousseff. With economic contraction and growing expenditure, the fiscal deficit will increase. There is no more room for gambling.
Poland’s right turn
Western commentators see the ‘sudden’ right-wing turn of Poland as a so-passé mixture of nationalism, populism and deficits of democracy. But the truth is very different. Is it inexplicable madness or a rational response? The new government inaugurated its tenure with a series of outrageous anti-democratic moves, including a frontal attack on the Constitutional Court and on the independence of the media.
Orson Welles, Essential American Artist
It is thirty years since he died, but the success and failure of Welles will continue to be discussed as his career raises questions about the relation of imaginative art to popular culture.
Britain’s ‘empire of the mind’
Britain is off to war again. The parliamentary debate did not live up to the billing. Cameron and Corbyn underperformed. Hilary Benn stole the show and headlines.