John Foster / 24 Mar 2023
Buried in the Past
The DUP’s Northern Ireland
“Not all people live in the same now.” Penned by Ernst Bloch to account for the rise of the Nazis, the 1935 truism could just as well apply to today’s Europe.(...)
history
Charlie Bertsch / 23 Mar 2023
All About the Heimat
Music as Politics in 1980s Germany
Teenagers were milling about. Bright colours shot off the portable mirror ball. The DJ stepped up to his console to cue the first track.(...)
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 / 16 Feb 2023
Ukraine in Hindsight
Edward Berger’s All Quiet on the Western Front
All Quiet on the Western Front, Edward Berger’s astoundingly brutal adaptation of Eric Maria Remarque’s 1929 novel about World War I – the favourite to win this year’s Best International Film Oscar – is timely to a degree that would have been hard to imagine when the project began.(...)
Ari Paul / 13 Feb 2023
Cold War Blame Games
Seymour Hersh and Nord Stream
Seymour Hersh, the legendary investigative journalist who uncovered American war crimes in Vietnam and Iraq, has been in journalistic hibernation for some time. (...)
John Foster / 04 Feb 2023
Fake News About History
Ukraine is Not Stalingrad
Foucault once suggested that Clausewitz's famous observation, "war is not merely a political act but a real political instrument" carried out by other means, be reversed, with politics made an extension of war.(...)
Charlie Bertsch / 14 Dec 2022
The Sexism of Everyday Life
Jeanne Dielman, Directed by Chantal Akerman
When Sight and Sound’s once-a-decade poll about the greatest films of all time was published two weeks ago, people were shocked to see Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai de Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles at the top.(...)
Josh White / 05 Dec 2022
Soviet Collapse, National Decline
Russia 1985–1999, by Adam Curtis
Adam Curtis is a collagist who deals with ideas and their emotional impact.(...)
Charlie Bertsch / 23 Nov 2022
Surviving Italy
Climatic Rock, by Anduela Keku
The two tracks on Anduela Keku’s new EP Climatic Rock take listeners through a seemingly barren wasteland, a space defined by monotony, with nothing to focus on but the road ahead.(...)
Charlie Bertsch / 05 Oct 2022
Eternal Berlin
Deutsch Funk Revolte, by ÖPNV
ÖPNV’s debut album Deutsch Funk Revolte is the sort of record that can make you sense the sun even when it is blocked by the relentless grey of winter, which happens most days in their Berlin home. (...)