In 1989, as the Berlin Wall was breached and the political order of Europe was upended, two obscure people in their mid-thirties watched it happen from inside an imploding Communist state, the German Democratic Republic. In Dresden, Vladimir Putin, an agent of the KGB, burned secret files in a furnace at the intelligence agency’s headquarters. […]
The post The Last of Her Kind appeared first on The New York Review of Books.
There is the war, and then there is the war about the war. Vladimir Putin’s assault on Ukraine is being fought in fields and cities, in the air and at sea. It is also, however, being contested through language. Is it a war or a “special military operation”? Is it an unprovoked invasion or a […]
The post Our Hypocrisy on War Crimes appeared first on The New York Review of Books.
In 1991 Margaret Thatcher accepted an invitation to speak in the city that had just ceased to be Leningrad and was now St. Petersburg again. As a demonstration of the ruthlessness that has made it so good at holding on to power, her own Conservative Party had deposed her the previous year as prime minister […]
The post The Party’s Over appeared first on The New York Review of Books.
Those of us who find it strange that a country should be deeply shocked by the death of a ninety-six-year-old woman must remind ourselves that it is a crime in England to let your thoughts dwell on the death of the monarch. The Treason Act of 1351, still in force, makes clear that this most […]
The post The Two Elizabeths appeared first on The New York Review of Books.
In this edition of CEPR Sanctions Watch: the Afghan Fund meets, but relief for Afghanistan remains far as winter draws near; the UN General Assembly condemns the US embargo against Cuba by a vote of 185 to 2; Biden appears to revert to Trump’s “maximum pressure” strategy in Iran; sanctions against North Korea have “abjectly […]
The post CEPR Sanctions Watch, November 2022 appeared first on Center for Economic and Policy Research.