Pétain’s Gift

Endgame in Paris

The Life of a Dog

Though François Fejtő throughout his long life kept his eye on central and eastern Europe, both in his largely anonymous professional work as a regional…

Hearts and Minds

The stubborn obstacles that stand in the way of a unitary state in Ireland

Pass the Parcel

Ways in which knowledge was disseminated in early modern Europe

Doing the Continental

The European dream of perpetual peace

The New Centre

Speaking in Tongues

German Lessons

The Man From Nowhere

Rallying the great and the good to build the European project from above

A Learning Curve

A German writer learns the cost of making a god of the nation

The Europeans

Eurosceptics have been predicting the collapse of the EU for twenty years now, sure that the citizens would realise it was all an impossible dream

The Necessary Other

Categorising groups of people as ‘Other’ is a practice that seems to be frowned upon in the best intellectual circles. But there are markers apart…

Where Late The Sweet Birds Sang

His indisputable genius ensured that William Shakespeare assumed the status of England’s chief literary emblem, in the same way that Cervantes was chosen to represent…

Enemies of the Nation

In late 19th century France, the propagandists of the far right warned that the nation faced a mortal enemy, a parasitical stranger who could not…

Collateral Damage

Thomas Niedermayer was a German factory manager whose plant brought much-needed jobs to West Belfast. A new book tells the story of his death at…

It’s Only Me

Michel de Montaigne lived through the French wars of religion and was involved in many attempts on behalf of his king to broker a peace.…

An Obstinate People

The greatest Jewish crime, for early modern Christians, was the rejection and killing of Christ. But they also had a long list of other faults…

The High-Wire Man

Joseph Roth took stylistic risks in his journalism, but they almost always paid off. He became one of the most highly respected contributors to the…

Daddy’s Pal

A memoir can be an expansive story in which, regrettably, nothing is left out and which one would really prefer not to have to listen…

The Romantic Englishman

George Orwell is celebrated as the man who made political writing an art. But if he was a brilliantly gifted, and often funny, polemical writer,…

The Last Chapter

Books and bookselling have been with us for a couple of thousand years, in which time they have progressed out of the libraries and into…

Apples at World’s End

Czesław Miłosz lived through a century in which many thought they could take History by the scruff of the neck, for the aggrandisement of their…

Does Europe Exist?

Does culture reside only in particular nations and national traditions or can we speak of a European culture? And if we can, what might it…

And Another Thing

The most recent translation of WG Sebald’s work offers the expected pleasure of his engaging prose style and an introduction to the world of some…

A Moralist in the Newsroom

As well as being a novelist and philosopher, Albert Camus was, at various times of his life, a journalist, working as reporter, editor and columnist.…

An Awfully Big Adventure

Patrick Leigh Fermor was a man of great talents who inspired affection and deep friendship among those who knew him and who was fortunate in…

NAUGHTY BUT NICE

Jane Austen inherited a tradition in which the novel was expected to teach good behaviour. But that was not what interested her. Her fictions are…

Tickled To Death

"The barons of the media, with their red-topped assassins, are the biggest beasts in the modern jungle. They have no predators. They are untouchable. They…

Back To Basics

It is one of the weaknesses of Judt’s position – and a symptomatic one – that he never addresses the question of affordability. “Even in…

All Things Considered

As a child, Czesław Miłosz wrote, 'I was primarily a discoverer of the world, not as pain but as beauty ... Happiness experienced in boyhood…

Stop The Lights

Todorov’s version of secularism, however, is a sane and balanced one, where the state does not encroach on the church and the church does not…

Out of the Ice

In most communist societies, the intelligentsia, and in particular the artistic intelligentsia – engineers of the human soul in Stalin’s phrase – were afforded the…

The Border Campaign

Salandra instructed Italy’s regional governors to prepare reports for him on people’s attitudes to the coming conflict. The findings were that most people thought going…

Europe Inside and Out

While some see the European Union as the only effective possible counterweight to “chaotic international networks and concentrations of power” others see it as another…

The First Egoist

A moralist in the newsroom

Righteous Renegade