I have published From the Burning Archive: essays and fragments 2015-2022. You can buy it as print or e-book here at Amazon and also at other online retailers. Here is an excerpt of the introductory essay of that collection. It tells how a dream image became a poem became a blog became a podcast and then an author platform.
I have just released episode 55 of the Burning Archive podcast. This episode is about the concept of civilization, in both the legendary game Civ I-VI and in the traditions of history-writing. Civilization, the game, is soon to be released in its 7th edition. In this episode of The Burning Archive I respond to a... Continue Reading →
Over the last few weeks I have collected a fair swag of Russian world history and literature.
From this traumatised, divided old Russian Soviet poet, we learn about our own strange freedom.
Vladimir Putin's Victory Day speech tells stories of how Russia has responded to threats by embracing multi-ethnic, multi-national traditions.
So, it seems reasonable at least to ask: what will happen in the West if Russia wins the war in Ukraine?
Something tells me Chekhov and the innovations in drama he bequeathed to us may appear in my podcast series on the gifts of Russian culture.
Catherine Merridale, Lenin on the Train (2016), which I finished reading last night, is a very fine book. It is a gem, and perhaps ought to be recommended as among the very best introductions to the history of the Russian Revolution.
Last night I saw The Northman, the new film set in the world of the Norse/Vikings and directed by Richard Eggers.
This morning I released the latest Burning Archive podcast. In games, we see a different pre-modern world of work - of artisans, craft skills and guilds. Was this world ever real, and what does this fantasy world of work tell us of our collective memory of work and collective organisation? Join me on this fascinating tour of the history of work, guilds and unions, and the global transformations of ideas of work in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries.
There is a war across many states to shape the institutions of the multipolar world. The Atlantic elites have declared this war in the name of democracy, and with too little regard for the consequences for the citizens of the world. This conflict will last a long time, maybe five to ten years, unless, that is, there is a rapid collapse of political order in the United States of America. Currently this war is undertaken across all dimensions - military, economic, information/narrative and diplomacy. And the war is most intense on the economic front. But how long will the military proxy war and economic war continue, and will they broaden?
"Everyone was dreaming, ruminating, full of foreboding, feeling his way." (Nikolai Sukhanov on February 1917 Russian Revolution). Does this not feel a lot like us today? Do we all not feel the world is unfolding in surprising directions, and among our more difficult tasks is to feel our own way through these events?
The Burning Archive 