Poland
John Foster / 31 Mar 2023

Italy After Neoliberalism

Mussolini’s Grandchildren, by David Broder

Giorgia Meloni’s election win in September 2022 was a watershed moment in history. Coming from Italy’s postfascist right, Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia (FdI) was the first party to overcome the antifascist nostrums that had been integral to European politics since 1945.(...)
Charlie Bertsch / 02 Mar 2023

We Are All Donkeys

Jerzy Skolimowski’s EO

The donkey is lying on the ground, like a corpse. We see a close-up of the blood-spattered hairs on its nose. But then it takes a breath, then another.(...)
John Foster / 24 Feb 2023

The Biggest Failure Ever

R. T. Howard’s Spying on the Reich

From the vantage point of the early 21st century, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the interwar period was a preamble to catastrophe.(...)
Charlie Bertsch / 02 Feb 2023

Pre-Neoliberal Poland

Krzysztof Kieślowski’s The Scar

Krzysztof Kieślowski's 1976 film The Scar, which chronicles the construction and operation of a large chemical factory, breaks many of the rules that had governed narrative cinema since the silent era.(...)
John Foster / 15 Apr 2022

Putting NATO in Its Place

Russia and the Ukraine War

Baron Ismay, who served as Secretary-General of NATO from 1952 to 1957, famously described its purpose as keeping “the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down”.(...)