Essay
List of Essay articles
-
Two women work at a sewing machine in a booth filled with patterned fabrics. A man is seen working on fabric at a table on the left. Africa Is Now Calling the Shots
Governments, civil society, and the private sector are reimagining development away from external interventions.
-
An illustration of a tattered flag with a globe waving from a makeshift stick flagpole/ The End of Development
The West’s aid model was always a mirage. It’s time for a realistic alternative.
-
An illustration shows a wind turbine cleaving the globe in half, rising out of its broken-open center. The ocean in one hemisphere is orange; in the other, it's green. The Coming Ecological Cold War
Decarbonization isn’t just about technology and markets—it’s a geopolitical revolution.
-
An illustration shows the back of a person wearing a graduation cap with a globe motif on it. A hand reaches in to move a locator pin on the top of the cap/map. So You Want to Work in International Affairs
A veteran practitioner’s 12 tips to land that first job.
-
A person is silhouetted in front of a white high relief statue of Stalin with other figures around him. The Kremlin’s Factory of Resentment
A new history of the Cold War unwittingly exposes Russian distortions of the past.
-
A person in a soldier's uniform carries the flag of imperial Japan outside of a shrine as people walk by in the background. When Will World War II End in Japan?
Silence on the official history of 1939 to 1945 has led to a flowering of creative interpretations.
-
A man with dark hair in glasses and a coat. The Dreamers and Cynics of the New Turkey
A renowned director quietly probes life under Erdogan.
-
Photos of two men speaking each shown as a negative color inside a red and blue circle. Kissinger, Brzezinski, and the Promise of Realism
A cynical realism resonates today, but there is a model for fusing power and values.
-
Elite police and soldiers are silhouetted behind a Chinese flag. China Is Not Ready for Global Leadership
Pax Americana is dead, but Pax Sinica is nowhere in sight.
-
An illustration shows a hand holding up a head-shaped hourglass in a Hamlet-esque pose. Inside the hourglass are sands enveloping the statue of liberty and other monuments. The End of Modernity
A crisis is unfolding before our eyes—and also in our heads.
-
An illustration depicts historical moments from the past in the curtains of the Oval Office: Julius Caesar, the Cultural Revolution in China, and three American presidents. The room shows an empty chair at the Resolute Desk and a presidential seal on the rug. Why Compare the Present to the Past?
Thinking via historical analogy has become the preferred way to confront our anxieties.
-
People use their phones to take a photo of the empty space on a wall of portraits. How Trump Will Be Remembered
No other president has made his time in office so nakedly about himself and his legacy.
-
A woodcut style illustration depicts Donald Trump as Julius Caesar An American Caesar
Comparing two leaders, two millennia apart.
-
An illustration shows a Nazi-uniformed hand holding a fountain pen that breaks the globe into spheres of influence. How a Nazi Jurist Captured Imaginations on the U.S. Left and Right
It’s Carl Schmitt’s world, and we’re all just living in it.
-
An illustration shows Chairman Mao being driven in a car past a sea of red flags. In the foreground is Donald Trump in a similar pose driven in a golf cart. Is This an American Cultural Revolution?
Liberal critics charge Trump with creating a cult of personality not unlike Mao Zedong’s.
