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The impossible promise: are we witnessing the return of fascism?
Some of today’s far right is openly violent and undemocratic – and even in its less extreme forms, far-right populism is a profound threat.
But that doesn’t mean it is just a re-run of history.
#Fascism #Politics #History #FarRight #Democracy #Populism #Longread
Art, sex, nature: why is everything sold to us as a means to an end, rather than an end in itself?
How a reductive worldview is stripping meaning from our most valued activities.
#Art #Philosophy #Health #Society #Gardening #Journalling #Singing #Sports #Fun #Gratitude #Longread
How to survive the information crisis: ‘We once talked about fake news – now reality itself feels fake’.
In this age of crisis, technology is pulling us apart.
At its best, journalism can bring us together again, writes Guardian editor-in-chief Katharine Viner.
The intertwined stories of Putin and Stalin’s refugees in a literary circle near Paris.
In the Paris suburb of Vanves, a small literary circle keeps alive the memory of the great Russian poet Marina Tsvetaeva, in the apartment where she lived before her doomed return to Stalin’s Russia.
Today’s Russian dissidents see in her verses a reflection of their own inner turmoil.
#MarinaTsvetaeva #Russia #Literature #History #Stalin #Putin #Poetry #Dissidents #Longread
Inside voice: what can our thoughts reveal about the nature of consciousness?
Scientists and philosophers studying the mind have discovered how little we know about our inner experiences.
#Neuroscience #Consciousness #Psychology #Philosophy #HumanBiology #Science #Longread
Niklas Frank, a son consumed by hatred for his Nazi father.
Niklas Frank, an 86-year-old former journalist, is known in Germany for his absolute loathing of his father.
As a Reich official, Hans Frank, appointed by Hitler and nicknamed the “Butcher of Poland”, was among those sentenced to death at the Nuremberg trials, which began 80 years ago.
#Germany #NiklasFrank #HansFrank #Nazis #Nazi #WW2 #History #Europe #Poland #France #Nuremberg
My maddening battle with chronic fatigue syndrome: ‘On my worst days, it feels almost demonic’.
I suffered with my mystery illness for decades before gaining a diagnosis.
Could retraining my brain be the answer?
#MyalgicEncephalomyelitis #ChronicFatigueSyndrome #Health #Neurology #Longread
‘I felt betrayed, naked’: did a prize-winning novelist steal a woman’s life story?
His novel was praised for giving a voice to the victims of Algeria’s brutal civil war.
But one woman has accused Kamel Daoud of having stolen her story – and the ensuing legal battle has become about much more than literary ethics
#KamelDaoud #France #Algeria #Literature #Books #Culture #SaadaArbane #History #Longread
The Swedes searching for their Colombian mothers 40 years after their adoptions: ‘They stole my identity’.
Sixty thousand adoptions were registered in Sweden between 1969 and 2022, of which 5698 originated in Colombia.
A Swedish government report acknowledges that the processes were plagued with irregularities, from the theft of babies to documents with false information.
‘What I see in clinic is never a set of labels’: are we in danger of overdiagnosing mental illness?
Our current approach to mental health labelling and diagnosis has brought benefits.
But as a practising doctor, I am concerned that it may be doing more harm than good.
Ongoing interactions with sailing vessels: The mysterious behaviour of the orcas of Gibraltar.
For the past several years, orcas off the coast of southwestern Europe have been ramming boats and sailboat rudders for no apparent reason. Why?
#Orcas #Gibraltar #Mediterranean #Spain #Portugal #Wildlife #Animals #Longread
Forty years in the Siberian wilderness: the Old Believers who time forgot.
In 1978, Soviet scientists stumbled upon a family living in a remote part of Russia.
They hadn’t interacted with outsiders for decades.
Almost half a century later, one of them is still there.
Former Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz: An alliance of the illiberal right with tech?
Former Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz is travelling the world as a businessman. And he is making sure to maintain his close ties to those with power.
Might he be considering a return to politics?
Fast Fashion exploitation: How the clothes-hanger wars escalated in Italy.
A double murder in Rome shook Italy's Chinese community.
The trail led to Prato, the heart of the fast-fashion industry - where workers from Asia are exploited by ruthless companies.
#FastFashion #Exploitation #Labour #FashionIndustry #TextileIndustry #Rome #Prato #Italy
The crisis whisperer: how Adam Tooze makes sense of our bewildering age.
Whether it’s the financial crash, the climate emergency or the breakdown of the international order, historian Adam Tooze has become the go-to guide to the radical new world we’ve entered.
#History #World #Politics #Economics #Geopolitics #Books #AdamTooze #Longread
Death on the inside: as a prison officer, I saw how the system perpetuates violence.
A rise of murders is traumatising inmates and staff, and making life harder for staff.
But even in prison, violence isn’t inevitable.
#Prisons #Probation #UK #CriminalJustice #Crime #Law #Longread
Never out of date: how Hannah Arendt helps us understand our world.
Fifty years after her death in New York, Hannah Arendt has become the most popular philosopher of our time.
For good reason: Her views are just as timely as ever.
#HannahArendt #Philosophy #History #Germany #Nazis #Antisemitism #Racism #Fascism #Communism #Liberalism #Holocaust #ColdWar #WW2 #Longread
How I changed my personality in six weeks.
Based on emerging research showing people can shift their core personality traits, Laurie Clarke tried tweaking hers.
Here’s what happened.
#Personally #Psychology #Health #Openness #Conscientiousness #Extraversion #Agreeableness #Neuroticism #Science #Longread
‘Pretty birds and silly moos’: the women behind the UK’s Sex Discrimination Act.
In the 50 years since equal rights for women were enshrined in UK law, the campaigners have been reduced to caricatures, or forgotten.
But their struggle is worth remembering.
#Politics #Women #WomensSuffrage #Media #Feminism #Discrimination #Society #UK #Law #SexDiscriminationAct #SexDiscrimination #Longread
The snail farm don: is this the most brazen tax avoidance scheme of all time?
Terry Ball – renowned shoe salesman, friend to former mafiosi – has resolved to spend his last years finding ways to cheat authorities he feels have cheated him.
His greatest ruse? A tax-dodging snail empire.
'Dédé la Sardine' and Russian oil: Inside the affair that has haunted Total for 15 years.
The Nanterre criminal court is set to hear a thorny case involving enigmatic Russian figures and the French multinational Total, against a backdrop of fraudulent international arbitration in order to extract the equivalent of €16 billion from French oil company Total.
Their trial begins on Monday.
#Total #Legal #Fraud #Arbitration #France #Justice #Russia #Oil #Europe #Business
Inside the rise of a £1m Glastonbury tickets scammer.
Miles Hart had a reputation as a guy who could get anything. Friends from the elite private school he used to attend say he once surprised them with an all-expenses-paid trip to Paris on a private jet with less than 24 hours notice.
So when he started selling Glastonbury tickets, hospitality passes and VIP passes many of his former schoolmates jumped at the chance.
Germany’s Queen Mum: Nostalgia for the Merkel era is alive and well.
With every blunder from Chancellor Friedrich Merz, longing for the purported good, old days of Angela Merkel grows in Germany.
Many miss her tone, her presence. Has Germany’s Queen Mum noticed?
‘I clicked on a button – and everything changed’: how a DNA test turned my life upside-down.
When I found out my father had been adopted, I was curious to know more about his side of the family.
Nothing could have prepared me for what I would discover…
#Genealogy #Family #IVF #Parents #Genetics #DNATest #Longread
‘I had poked the bear right in the eye’: my fight to renounce my Russian citizenship.
When Putin invaded Ukraine, he raised murder to the level of national policy. I felt guilt by association. And I had to act
#Citizenship #RussianCitizenship #Migration #UK #Russia #Ukraine #Putin #Navalny #WarInUkraine #Longread
Inside the covert operation to bring down the party threatening Viktor Orbán’s rule.
According to documents obtained by Direkt36, a secret operation was carried out to bring down the IT systems of the Hungarian opposition party Tisza.
IT specialists affiliated with the party planned to expose this, but then police officers, pressured by Hungarian secret services, raided them, apparently on trumped-up charges.
My husband and son dived to see the wreck of the Titanic, and never came back – this is what happened at sea.
Christine Dawood found herself trapped on the ship, waiting for signs that the Titan submersible carrying her family would surface.
She talks in detail for the first time about those harrowing four days.
#Titan #Titanic #OceanGate #Submarine #Submersible #ChristineDawood
‘Do you have any regrets about having to kill?’ On the Trans-Siberian Railway, Russian soldiers recount their time in Ukraine.
‘On Board the Trans-Siberian’ (2/2). As the train speeds toward the Russian Far East, between Novosibirsk and Vladivostok, the brutality of the war in Ukraine is at the centre of conversations between soldiers on leave and ‘ordinary’ passengers.
‘I stared death in the face!’ On board the Trans-Siberian, a 9000-km journey through an exhausted Russia.
‘On Board the Trans-Siberian’ (1/2). In late December 2025 and early 2026, on the train linking Moscow to Vladivostok, soldiers returning from Ukraine cross paths with cautious travellers, careful about what they say.
Beyond the Urals, propaganda posters attempt by every possible means to recruit new soldiers.