Latest Posts
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The Seminar and the Last Night
Shvarts has become for me an important poet.
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The Making of my podcast on the Medici
Today I have recorded, edited and released the latest episode of The Burning Archive podcast – The Medici in Games and in History
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Experiments with Morning Routines
So today I experimented with restoring my morning routine, but with a twist. So today the plan is….
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Three historical notes on Putin’s 2022 Victory Day Parade Speech
Vladimir Putin’s Victory Day speech tells stories of how Russia has responded to threats by embracing multi-ethnic, multi-national traditions.
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What if Russia Wins?
So, it seems reasonable at least to ask: what will happen in the West if Russia wins the war in Ukraine?
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The Irony of Chekhov
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.
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How Lenin on the Train began a 100 Years War
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.
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Discovering Zettelkasten and Rediscovering Luhmann
Discovering Zettelkasten and Ahrens’ guide to smart note-taking has been a blessing. But so too is re-discovering Luhmann…
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The Northman – as reviewed by the Burning Archive
Last night I saw The Northman, the new film set in the world of the Norse/Vikings and directed by Richard Eggers.
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Burning Archive Podcast 52 Professions and Guilds in Games and History
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.
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Republishing blogs as books
The focus of my writing attention over the last couple of weeks has been on editing a collection of my blog posts that I will publish as books.I don’t know how common it is to republish blogs as books, if in edited and curated form. It seems little different to me to the many collections of oped, short essays, book reviews and occasional pieces that do get published quite often.
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A relic of another time
The Russians with Attitude podcast released to their subscribers a feature this week on the Russian writer and mystic, Mikhail Bulgakov. Bulgakov made his way from a medical student in Kiev through the Civil War in Russia and Ukraine to a difficult life as a writer for newspapers, theatre and novels in the 1920s and 1930s. He wrote a great account of the Civil War in The White Guard, and of course the masterpiece for which he earned posthumous fame, The Master and Margarita. [Read more]….
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