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Society

Essays and videos on social issues, history, political life and the future
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Economics

Who bears the risk?

Under the guise of empowerment and freedom, politicians and business are offloading lifethreatening risk to individuals

Suzanne Schneider

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Political philosophy

The battles over beginnings

Niccolò Machiavelli’s profound insights about the violent origins of political societies help us understand the world today

David Polansky

Seen from inside, a couple eat a basic meal whilst outside in an alleyway a queue of mostly older people wait their turn
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Political philosophy

Liberal socialism now

As the crisis of democracy deepens, we must return to liberalism’s revolutionary and egalitarian roots

Matthew McManus

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Thinkers and theories

Against power

As a republican, Sophie de Grouchy argued that sympathy, not domination, must be the glue that holds society together

Sandrine Bergès & Eric Schliesser

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History

The mythos of leadership

How the biblical King David and Machiavelli’s Prince can help us understand the dominant view of leaders as individualists

Moshik Temkin

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Information and communication

How to hate

The manifesto was always a hotheaded call to arms. Then it got a slick, digital makeover in the cause of coldblooded hate

Tyler Thier

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Global history

The Asian world order

Before modern Europe existed there was a grand, interconnected political world, rich in scientific and artistic exchange

Ayşe Zarakol

Men are seen in a nondescript office type rooma against sunlight streaming through the window, their hands raised in devotion
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Religion

Indomitable Sufis

Once a centre of Afghan culture, Sufism seems to have disappeared in the maelstrom of war and upheaval. But still it survives

Annika Schmeding

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Fairness and equality

A tragicomic account of how the Los Angeles Police Department blew up a city block

19 minutes

Two fashionably dressed women in modern style hijabs descend steps beneath a blue sky
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Religion

Secularism in Iran

Postcolonial intellectuals and Iran’s rulers agree that secularism is just Western imperialism in disguise. They are wrong

Patrick Hassan & Hossein Dabbagh

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Art

Why a forcefully phallic portrait of Henry VIII is a masterful work of propaganda

6 minutes

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Global history

Meet the jesters who’ve spoken truth to power around the globe and across centuries

5 minutes

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Religion

How Jewish leaders in the US are fighting abortion bans on religious grounds

24 minutes

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Political philosophy

Liberal democracies are backsliding worldwide. Could anarchy help?

24 minutes

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Nations and empires

Settler colonialism

Displacing and destroying peoples by colonisation is not just a historical Western evil but a global and contemporary one

Lachlan McNamee

Eugene V Debs making a speech from a stage on which several other men, women and a young girl are seated behind him; also shows 48-star flags of the United States hanging at the back of the stage
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Political philosophy

In the interests of all

How Eugene V Debs turned American republicanism against the chiefs of capitalism – and became a true crusader for freedom

Tom O’Shea

An older man stands proudly in front of his house near Leipzig, east Germany after reunification in 1990. A German flag hangs from a ground floor window.
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Economic history

Deservingness

In post-communist eastern and central Europe, history is intensely personal and economics is saturated with moral feeling

Till Hilmar

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Nations and empires

The Arab Kingdom

Amid the chaos of the First World War, a new pan-Arab empire was proclaimed. It faltered, but its historical lessons remain

Adam Mestyan

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Fairness and equality

To build a fair society, we must first be able to envision it. John Rawls can help

64 minutes

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Politics and government

Models of antiquity

Radicals in the Age of Revolution saw the classical world as a common inheritance that could aid their fight for liberty

Francesca Langer

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Political philosophy

The Swedish theory of love

All countries must balance the freedom of individuals with the demands of the community. Sweden’s solution is unique

Lars Trägårdh

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Politics and government

Join the spirited debate at a women’s hair salon before a pivotal election in Tunisia

19 minutes

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Politics and government

‘Without a poster, you don’t exist!’ – on the curious political banners of Mumbai

20 minutes

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Religion

At the Kremlin in 1943

Stalin presented Orthodox leaders with a proposal: the Soviet state that had destroyed their Church would bring it back

Kathryn David