During the 2004–07 waves of expansion, the European Union (EU) welcomed ten countries of the former Soviet bloc along with Cyprus and Malta. “Old Europe” sought to rebuild the post-communist countries using the carrot of financial assistance and the stick of political servitude. The latter fostered resentment amongst the nationalist and socially conservative new EU members. Then, the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 took a hammer to the continent’s precarious politico-economic cohesion, establishing East-Central Europe as an important theater of a new Cold War. First, the ...
Quelle surprise was caused in France recently when Charles de Gaulle’s grandson, Pierre, suddenly announced his intention to apply for citizenship in Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Why? Because, Pierre ...
As this piece is going up on 9/11, I thought I’d better do something about Islam. But first, as Monty Python (almost) used to say, for something completely different: Like Hot Chocolate, I’ll be ...
The 1942 movie Casablanca is the cinematic version of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, which a Victorian woman reportedly disliked because she found it “full of clichés.” It ought not ...
When the telling of jokes was still part of European culture, racial and ethnic traits were often a key ingredient, and comedians thrived on national stereotypes. A perfect ...
The unelected gauleiters of the European Union must look back a decade with wistful fondness to a halcyon time when their only real headache was the Greek economy. Now, with ...
One London evening in 1914, just after Great Britain had declared war on Germany, British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey was in his parliamentary office talking to a ...
“Buy land,” Mark Twain advised. “They’re not making it anymore.” Perhaps Bill Gates has been reading the American author, as he recently became the largest private owner ...
Italian politics in recent years make ancient Rome look like Belgium. By all means catch up on the details of Italy’s current political infighting, if you have a spare day or ...
"Things fall apart; the center cannot hold." So wrote William Butler Yeats in the wake of the Great War of 1914-1918 that had ravaged the Christian civilization he had known. In ...
"Let Poland be Poland!" That was the call of American conservatives, four decades ago, when the Solidarity movement of labor leader Lech Walesa arose in the port city of Gdansk ...
The old adage is “the worm isn’t supposed to turn.” On the rare occasions when it does, it brings about tremendous anger and retribution. The Republic of Poland is now ...
For centuries up to and including the 20th, Europe seemed the central pivot of world history. Then came the Great Civil War of the West, our Thirty Years' War (1914-1945), where ...
Since its inception in AD 1000, the landlocked Central European nation of Magyarország has been invaded by Celts, Mongols, the Hapsburg and Ottoman Empires, a cartel of local ...
Respect LBGT rights or get out of the EU, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte instructed Hungary's Viktor Orban at last week's gathering of the European Union in Brussels. According ...
What appalled the American deep state and its media courtiers about Donald Trump’s election victory in 2016 may have been dressed up as an ad hominem attack, but it had more to ...