Charlie Bertsch / 18 Sep 2019

Lost in the Wilderness

Wolfgang Voigt’s Germany

When I was little, my German grandfather used to complain that American woodlands were not properly managed. At the time, I figured that this was just another one of his button-pushing remarks, designed to lure people into the sort of debate he loved. (...)

Brexit will be won like WWII. RAF Spitfires over Dunkirk, July 2017.
Josh White / 09 Aug 2019

The Patriotism Industry

Brexit Cinema War Chic

War films are the new chic. The most common setting being the Second World War, they’re the perfect genre for Brexit-era flag-waving exercises. It’s no surprise and no coincidence.(...)

Inspecting a communist banner. Berlin, May Day 2019.
John Foster / 07 Aug 2019

The Cops in Our Heads

Natasha Lennard’s Being Numerous: Essays on Non-Fascist Life

Fascism is the order of the day. One might confuse it with populism, or that the two are somehow vying for supremacy. (...)

The Battleground / 05 Jun 2019

Too Much About Salvini

The Battleground Guide to Summer Books (And One Magazine)

For the last six months, populism has been the only game in town. If it’s not Salvini it’s been Salvini. Not only was the topic over-reported. Predictions of his triumph were wrong.(...)

John Foster / 03 May 2019

Democracy in the Era of Populism

Chantal Mouffe and the Spanish Election

With the results of the snap elections held in Spain on Sunday still in the headlines, new questions have been raised about the so-called “populist moment” about which so much ink has been spilt of late.(...)

John Foster / 26 Apr 2019

The Way We Were

Britain At War

Long ago, while earning a library science degree, I worked as a manuscripts processing archivist at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. I handled letters and materials from the 17th century to the present.(...)

Charlie Bertsch / 05 Apr 2019

Exploding German Identity Politics

Rammstein’s Deutschland

The hysteria was predictable. Posing as both concentration camp inmates and their Nazi executioners, the video for Rammstein’s new song “Deutschland” was destined to infuriate one demographic, just as selecting a black actress, Ruby Commey, to personify Germania, was bound to piss off another.(...)

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