The latest episode of The Burning Archive Podcast is https://anchor.fm/jeff-rich4/embed/episodes/13-Change-everything-but-change-itself-e15tipu and available on all the usual platforms, including Apple and Spotify. In this episode of the Burning Archive, Jeff Rich completes his 12 part thematic history of our times. Historian Felipe Fernandez-Armesto writes about the impact of accelerating change on society over the last 50 years: “Under the … Continue reading Podcast #13 – Change everything but change itself
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The World Island vs The Atlantic
This year, 2021, may be remembered as a pivot year in world history. Not because of the pandemic. Not only because of the protracted crisis of the American republic. But because of the changed balance of power in international relations brought about by the decrepitude of the American Atlanticist Alliance and the strengthening of the … Continue reading The World Island vs The Atlantic
The fall of the American Empire’s Potemkin Province
Thus , in a few blitzkrieg weeks, after the Americans declared they would "draw down their civilian footprint" to meet a publicity deadline of the 20th anniversary of 9/11, the Taliban have exposed American power and control in Afghanistan as a projection of illusion, a Potemkin Province of an anxious empire in decline.
The Burning Archive podcast 9 – the Red Guards are Coming
The latest episode of my podcast discusses the Chinese Cultural Revolution - is such ferment and fervour to be celebrated or to be feared? https://open.spotify.com/episode/5YrFJ62wK9MYZ78zuntW7s?si=u8N8pHWVSEKexQ70HtBZVA&utm_source=native-share-menu&dl_branch=1
Watch “Five Poems – 4 – Dr. Cogito Enters the Feral City” on YouTube
Burning Archive Podcast #6 – The true history of the bureaucracy gang
I have posted episode 6 of The Burning Archive Podcast, - the true history of the bureaucracy gang. You can listen to this podcast on Spotify, Apple and other platforms. In this episode I discuss the history of the bureaucracy in the UK, USA and Germany, and its relationship to political decay. And I ask, … Continue reading Burning Archive Podcast #6 – The true history of the bureaucracy gang
Sunrise at Lorne
Poem: An Aubade
I have begun a new poetry collection that explores my experiences in this locked down year in which I have also been freed from sleep apnoea and chronic fatigue by a CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) machine. I have dubbed the machine and the poetry collection with the quasi mythic name of The Sleep Machine. … Continue reading Poem: An Aubade
How democracies really die
I found on my bookshelf by chance yesterday the 2018 jeremiad by two Harvard University professors (of government and the "science of government" no less!), Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, How Democracies Die: What History Reveals about our Future. It was a book that created something of a sensation at the time as the ruling … Continue reading How democracies really die
Reflections on 2019 – the democratic rebuff to progressivism
Democracy is a mesmerising word. The power of the idea overwhelms definition and precise thinking. The mandarin political theorist, Emeritus Professor John Dunn of Cambridge University, posed these questions in Breaking Democracy's Spell: "Why does this word democracy now hold such singular political authority? Where is the power that lurks so strangely within it? What … Continue reading Reflections on 2019 – the democratic rebuff to progressivism
My descriptions of the Northern Peoples – travel in Stockholm and Uppsala
I am returning today to my notes on my travels, and piecing together the literary and cultural associations prompted by my travels through Stockholm and Uppsala in June. I began to say that I knew little Swedish or Scandinavian writing or culture as I entered the country, but that was not really true. As we … Continue reading My descriptions of the Northern Peoples – travel in Stockholm and Uppsala
My wordpress 11th anniversary retrospective: 3 dilemmas of government
I am continuing my blogging retrospective today by reposting a small think-piece from The Happy Pessimist blog. If I have done my digital erasure correctly, you will not find any record of this blog online. I wrote it using the avatar pseudonym of Antonio Possevino, a Jesuit priest, diplomat and missionary of the 16th century. … Continue reading My wordpress 11th anniversary retrospective: 3 dilemmas of government
