civil war
What hope is there for Syria today?
After two brutal regimes and a devastating civil war, there’s fear of renewed corruption under President Ahmed al Sharaa, a former al Qaeda terrorist
Trouble in Tbilisi: The Lack of Light, by Nino Haratischwili, reviewed
Romance and family feuding Romeo and Juliet-style but on opioids unfold in 1990s Georgia, as civil war rages amid the power cuts
What a carve up! The British flair for disastrous partition
The ‘Great Partition’ of India in 1947 led to the wider division of Britain’s ‘empire within an empire’ – and to most of the problems plaguing southern Asia today
A brief glimpse of secretive Myanmar
Taking advantage of a relatively open period after the 2015 election, Claire Hammond explored the country’s interior through its complex, unofficial railway network
The mutterings of the dead
Ten years ago Shehan Karunatilaka’s first novel, Chinaman, was published and I raved about it, as did many others. Set…
Fears of popery
Stuart England did not do its anti-Catholicism by halves. In the late 1670s and early 1680s, a popular feature of…
Things fall apart
Civil war is breaking out in Ethiopia
Drowning in tears
Never was a monarch so undone by water as Henry I. A fruit of the sea killed him in 1135:…
Top Democrats contemplate civil war if Biden loses
The chattering caste of Washington DC has spent much of the summer obsessed with the idea that Donald Trump will…
Greece is not just for Greeks — it belongs to the world
It often proves difficult to talk about modern Greece. Not just because of the relentless stream of news coming at…
Ratings war
Planning for the ‘war of the future’ is something generals and politicians have been doing for the past 150 years.…
At this rate, we’ll have to rename New York
Growing up in Raleigh, North Carolina, I took the monuments around the state capitol for granted. The first Confederate soldier…
Trapped in hell
The mechanic, blinded in one eye by shrapnel, spent three days searching for his family in the destroyed buildings and…
Bitter sweet
The French master film-maker Jacques Audiard has never been anywhere near Hollywood plot school. His films contain gathering menace —…
How Lebanon is coping with more than a million Syrian refugees
How tiny Lebanon copes with an unstoppable flow of Syrian refugees
This is England
At the Turner Prize dinner of 2003, as the winner, Grayson Perry, took a photo call with his family wearing…
Brother against brother
Thank goodness for Game of Thrones. I think. Apparently it is inspired by the Wars of the Roses, drawing inspiration…
Sri Lanka: High tea in the Hill Country
Alex Massie relaxes amid lush lawns and eccentricity
