history

Eighty years ago today, the monstrous machinery of the Third Reich was finally ground to dust. The swastika was torn from the Reichstag, the death camps liberated, and Europe—bloodied, traumatised, but unbowed—emerged from history’s darkest night. It was not merely a military victory; it was the triumph of solidarity over fascism, of internationalism over racial […]

The post Some thoughts on the 80th Anniversary of Victory over Fascism appeared first on Yanis Varoufakis.

Political philosophers are criticised for their idealism, but when it comes to immigration they try to be ‘realistic’. Their aspiration to ‘realism’ often leads to nationalism (which I have analysed elsewhere as an implicit but heavy bias), but I still don’t understand why they aspire to realism on this issue. Philosophers have neither voters to […]

On 11th April 2025, Melissa Benn, Jeremy Corbyn and Yanis Varoufakis addressed an audience at the University of Westminster dedicated to the memory of Tony Benn – almost 100 years from his birth. This is what Yanis had to say about Tony’s legacy at that event. (Click icon above for audio)

The post Yanis Varoufakis on Tony Benn’s legacy – 11 APRIL 2025, audio appeared first on Yanis Varoufakis.

It started with farm animals—now it's revealing secrets of the cosmos

The post The Surprising History of Scientific Ballooning in 11 Missions appeared first on Nautilus.

In his monthly column, John Mitchinson explores how the long slow history of lead poisoning teaches us a salutary lesson

Here are two groups of Western philosophers. We’ll call them Group A and Group B. Here’s Group A: Plato, Epicurus, Plotinus, Aquinas, Duns Scotus, Francis Bacon, Hobbes, Locke, Spinoza, Newton, Leibniz, David Hume, Herbert Spencer, John Stuart Mill, Schopenhauer, Kant, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Jean-Paul Sartre, Kurt Gödel, Karl Popper, Jeremy Bentham, Alan Turing, Saul Kripke. […]

Violence is initiated by those who oppress, who exploit, who fail to recognise others as persons – not by those who are oppressed, exploited and unrecognised. Paulo Freire (1921-1997) was a Brazilian philosopher and educator. His Pedagogy of the Oppressed, originally published in Spanish in 1968. The text below was translated by Myra Bergman Ramos. Continue reading »

John Mitchinson explores the strangely complex method behind the music of the bells

“America is rock and roll.” — Alfred Howard Did some of you find it hard to feel the love for President’s Day this year? Well, remember: the reason it exists is because we Americans, as a nation, couldn’t choose between Washington’s Birthday and Lincoln’s Birthday. Washington is pretty great, but I’m a Lincoln guy myself. […]

"There is a moral responsibility by each global leader to think from the global perspective instead of from their own national-interest perspective."