Daniel Ellsberg, perhaps the most famous think-tanker of all time, passed away in June this year. But rather than any policy paper or legislative advocacy, he is remembered for an action then treated as treachery and now regarded as heroism. …
Why you should be a thick traveller
Anthropology is in some ways an odd and creepy thing to do. Anthropologists spend a lot of time watching people, often people who are very different from themselves, in the hope of understanding them. If done wrong, as it has …
Kissinger’s final warning
How one chooses to celebrate Kissinger’s Century depends on where you sit in the “Kissinger wars”. To his detractors, Henry Kissinger was an imperialist who pursued US global supremacy with unmatched ruthlessness and cynicism. To his supporters, he was a …
Vietnam still haunts America
In the course of his troubled presidency, Richard Nixon spoke 14 times to the American people about the war in Vietnam. It was in one of those speeches that he coined the phrase “the silent majority”, while others provoked horror …
Europe’s empty promises to Ukraine
Every war has a photograph that captures its horrors. Vietnam had Napalm Girl; Spain had The Falling Soldier. How will the war in Ukraine be remembered? Thanks to Vladimir Putin’s ruthlessness, an image of a heavily pregnant woman being stretchered …