The sense of belonging that comes with following a multitude can blind crowds to rational debate and reason.

Ghost town London had its harbingers in literature and history. How will it emerge from its isolation?

The West must re-examine its capacity to produce critical military supplies.

Churchill's faithful and most trusted political advisor was indispensable to the British war effort.

American High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems are wreaking havoc on Russian forces in Ukraine but they are only one part of the battlefield's complicated tableau.

Karl Marx was wrong about revolutions - in practice, they beget Caesars and Napoleons.

The journey into wine is almost like a pilgrimage, with many new encounters and friends along the way.

To argue that Thatcher attacked the post-war dream is to caricature, not illuminate, her importance to British history.

The West must re-examine its capacity to produce critical military supplies.

London's response to its last plague epidemic involved close collaboration between crown, City and parish.

To follow the course of London's ancient rivers is to take a journey through centuries of history.

The internet and social media were supposed to democratise knowledge and unite the world. Things didn't quite turn out that way.

The transfer market rewards footballers on merit. If only the same could be said about managerial performance.

George Blake, who died last month at the age of 98, was a Soviet double agent defined by his dangerous loyalty not to money, nor homeland, but to ideological principle.

Despite the predictions of some of the best minds of the past five hundred years, religion remains. In fact, from the rise of Islamic extremism to American evangelism, the twenty-first century is...

The famed French chronicler of poverty and war saw hope in the prospect of the European ideal - over a century before the creation of the EU.

His intense faith led Gage to switch his religious allegiance during the tumultuous 17th century - he went on to have an enormous impact on Britain's colonial future.

The elegance of Georgian architecture, best exemplified in Bath and Edinburgh, can inspire a modern Renaissance in British housing design.

Modern society is history's most equal. But progress has not been linear – or easy to calculate.

It was the decade of Friends, Bill Clinton and a fresh new pan-European passport. Underneath the teen-pop smile of the nineties there were blemishes.

George Lucas' space epic is the morality tale for our age.

Classical and novel appear antithetical but a search for the new is evident in some of the oldest literary works.

Reading the Andalusian Arab writer al-Bakri is to go on a magnificent journey through harsh deserts and lands rich in gold watched over by quixotic local rulers.

Despite building institutionalised dissent into its intelligence systems, the country was still caught out by terrorists.

Willie Wilde - Oscar Wilde's older brother - had been destined for a distinguished public life, but the siren song of dissolute journalism proved too tempting.

American High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems are wreaking havoc on Russian forces in Ukraine but they are only one part of the battlefield's complicated tableau.

Hilma af Klint's work is saturated in the scientific culture of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Russian aggression has sparked fears of apocalypse. Although terrifying, this is an opportunity for decision makers to ask themselves 'what next?' should the nuclear pact break.

Jacob Boehme was an unlikely seventeenth-century mystic, but his visionary imaginings of the world struck a chord with followers far and wide – and his work has much to offer today.

After examining the economic chaos of the early twentieth century, monetary theorist Jacques Rueff argued that without monetary order, civilisational growth is impossible.

The crisis of meritocracy is a crisis of dignity. We need to find new ways to value what people are good at.

A failing school system has eroded meritocracy in America. But innovative educators are turning the tide.

Deference to history will not be enough to answer the geopolitical questions of the future. New systemic forces are in play.

The early modern Italian republics are often portrayed as models of bad government. But the fusion of civic humanism and Christianity they championed endures to this day.

Russia’s war is a tragedy for its people whose acceptance of it is mired in complexity — and sheer horror for Ukrainians living it in real time.

Britain's reverence for its National Health Service was developing long before the post-war promise of a New Jerusalem.

Ancient Chinese ideas on merit are being manipulated to block checks on power and venerate authoritarian governance.

Over the past three months the wider world has watched Ukrainian army offensives with amazement. While impressive, their successes are not miracles and can be explained by superb leadership, excell...

The famed French chronicler of poverty and war saw hope in the prospect of the European ideal - over a century before the creation of the EU.

The Eastern Roman polity largely worked so effectively because rulers and ruled took seriously the idea of the empire as a res publica.

Humanity’s relationship with nature is under threat. Rather than abandoning it to the wild, however, we must embrace the age-old idea of Arcadia – and reform our stewardship of the earth.

The Ukrainian president has turned to new military leadership in the hope that it will end the stalemate in the war against Russia.

Russian media propagates a militaristic vision of national identity at odds with a malicious West: but where does this story come from?

Sidney Lumet’s Twelve Angry Men should be on the school curriculum — has there been a more relevant film to watch today in our era of populism, over simplistic arguments, and fake news?

World-altering events often happen in the middle of August. Is this a coincidence or is it something about the time of year?

Every computer program running today is descended from the code Klára Dán penned more than seventy years ago. Her story deserves as much recognition as that of her husband — the polymath John von...

Hilma af Klint's work is saturated in the scientific culture of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The Tokugawa shogun's 1860 embassy to the United States offers tantalising hints of a road not travelled in the story of Japan’s relationship with the West.

In Russia, failed coups are usually harbingers of chaos and collapse. Three examples spring to mind: the 1991 attempted coup d’état against Mikhail Gorbachev, Lavr Kornilov’s 1917 march on St....

Intelligence in war is as much a product of common sense as of technical brilliance. It must be understood and applied wisely to be of any use.

Richelieu’s cats are not alone in the pantheon of historic pets. There are many of these animals – silent witnesses to the mighty spasms of human history and, it is said, humanisers of some of...

The power of Easter is that it doesn’t deny the pain or darkness of death, but it places it in the context of hope.

The struggle for sustainable energy will soon put China, the US and Europe on a geopolitical collision course. But moving away from fossil fuels is a Herculean task, and a greener politics will not...

At a time of moral and political crisis, the medieval poet pioneered a daring and emotive vernacular style which inspired generations of Italian literature.

Within this international drink is a microcosm of all the movements and ambitions and exchanges of mankind.

Disasters result from vulnerabilities in our social fabric and a lack of preparedness for new threats. Those with the fewest options have the most to lose.

Ukraine's approach to the offensive is likely to be intelligent and precise.

Christopher Coker, a formidable scholar of international relations and supporter of Engelsberg Ideas, has died at the age of 70.

This year at Engelsberg Ideas we've published analysis and observations from leading thinkers and writers. Here are some of our favourite pieces.

With the release of Pax: War and Peace in Rome’s Golden Age, Tom Holland completes his acclaimed three-volume study of Imperial Rome, focused on a cavalcade of emperors, good and bad, who, despite...

Finland’s path towards NATO may have been a long one, but Finland is in no sense a reluctant ally.

Stresemann guided the Weimar Republic through its post-war crisis with agility and tenacity. The question of whether he might have been able to do the same following the Wall Street Crash and the...

The biggest division in modern society is between the meritocracy and the people, the cognitive elite and the masses, the exam-passers and the exam-flunkers.

Napoleonic geopolitics didn't make much impression on Europe's maps, but its influence was wide-ranging.

While the announcement of Russia’s mobilisation has lengthened the dark tunnel of war, the light of Ukrainian victory still glows. Ukraine’s army must exploit its momentum before the arrival of...

The great historian’s life and works stand as a paean to the power and importance of historical knowledge.

During the Cold War, the British Joint Intelligence Committee was charged with forecasting the actions of states behind the Iron Curtain and the rest of the world. Its record was patchy - the Brits...

The First World War fundamentally altered our understanding of strategy - we should heed the insights of the era's leading thinkers and generals.

While the activities of many agents in the First and Second World Wars have been known, the stories and legacies of the 'secretaries' of MI6 are only just beginning to be revealed.

How did our ancestors think? The written word provides crucial evidence of how language has shaped human consciousness.

Across our cities and towns, night’s natural darkness is giving way to the glare and dazzle of LED lighting – but to embrace it wholeheartedly is to risk losing more than ominous shadows.

Classical music doesn’t need to dumb down to make itself accessible: its genius is that it’s already accessible to people of every skill level. Which human pursuit can compete with that?

Modern magnates such as Jeff Bezos and Peter Thiel should heed the warnings of the Ancients in their quest for immortality.

Nuclear arsenals constrain us, within limits. They enable dictators, within limits. Those limits matter, whether they are the limits of what we would do to dictators if we could, or what dictators...

The Norman Conquest brought new kinds of poetry from France, with new stories, language, and themes - and one of those themes was spring.

The Hungarian-born Jewish painter Philip de László was fêted by pre-war social elites, but his flourishing career foundered upon an enduring antisemitism.

Frank Kitson was lauded for his prowess in counter-insurgency but those who celebrate his legacy should question whether his tactics ultimately exacerbated the violence he sought to stop.

Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev had the singular misfortune of living long enough to watch some of his most important achievements reversed by his myopic successors. But he did accomplish something...