Engelsberg Ideas

Engelsberg Ideas Engelsberg Ideas is free to read, providing access to excellence.

Engelsberg Ideas is the home to great writing from the world’s leading thinkers on history, culture, and ideas, featuring essays, historical portraits and regular podcasts.

What makes Carl Schmitt uncannily relevant today is not his theory of international spheres of influence but his siniste...
01/12/2025

What makes Carl Schmitt uncannily relevant today is not his theory of international spheres of influence but his sinister, compelling critique of parliamentary democracy.

The Schmittian inheritance | Daniel Johnson

What makes Carl Schmitt uncannily relevant today is not his theory of international spheres of influence but his sinister, compelling critique of parliamentary democracy.

A versatile painter of preternatural talent, Holbein rode his luck to create the most potent images of the reign of Henr...
01/12/2025

A versatile painter of preternatural talent, Holbein rode his luck to create the most potent images of the reign of Henry VIII.

Holbein, master of images | Michael Prodger

A versatile painter of preternatural talent, Holbein rode his luck to create the most potent images of the reign of Henry VIII.

Moscow is burning through its reserves and staring into a deep domestic abyss. Everyone in Putin’s Russia — from the poo...
28/11/2025

Moscow is burning through its reserves and staring into a deep domestic abyss. Everyone in Putin’s Russia — from the poorest pensioner to the wealthiest oligarch — is feeling the strain. That’s why the Kremlin is looking for an exit.

Peter Caddick-Adams () on why Russia has come to the table. Click the link in bio to read.

Image: Russian tanker being loaded with coal. Credit: Evgenii Parilov

Alfred Buckham combined audacious aerial photography with groundbreaking techniques to make magnificent art.Malcolm Forb...
28/11/2025

Alfred Buckham combined audacious aerial photography with groundbreaking techniques to make magnificent art.

Malcolm Forbes on when the photograph took flight. Click the link in bio to read.

Image: An aerial photo of Edinburgh taken by Alfred Buckham in 1920. Credit: Niday Picture Library

Alfred Buckham combined audacious aerial photography with groundbreaking techniques to make magnificent art.When the pho...
28/11/2025

Alfred Buckham combined audacious aerial photography with groundbreaking techniques to make magnificent art.

When the photograph took flight | Malcolm Forbes

Alfred Buckham combined audacious aerial photography with groundbreaking techniques to make magnificent art.

Moscow is burning through its reserves and staring into a deep domestic abyss. Everyone in Putin’s Russia — from the poo...
28/11/2025

Moscow is burning through its reserves and staring into a deep domestic abyss. Everyone in Putin’s Russia — from the poorest pensioner to the wealthiest oligarch — is feeling the strain. That's why the Kremlin is looking for an exit.

Why Russia has come to the table | Peter Caddick-Adams

Moscow is burning through its reserves and staring into a deep domestic abyss. Everyone in Putin’s Russia — from the poorest pensioner to the wealthiest oligarch — is feeling the strain. That's why the Kremlin is looking for an exit.

The US and Mexico have intensified their joint efforts to take down the cartels – and the stakes could not be higher.A n...
27/11/2025

The US and Mexico have intensified their joint efforts to take down the cartels – and the stakes could not be higher.

A new age of US-Mexican interdependence | Joseph Ledford

The US and Mexico have intensified their joint efforts to take down the cartels – and the stakes could not be higher.

Invoking Machiavelli to legitimise bloodletting in democracies leads nowhere good.Violence according to Machiavelli | Da...
27/11/2025

Invoking Machiavelli to legitimise bloodletting in democracies leads nowhere good.

Violence according to Machiavelli | David Wootton

Invoking Machiavelli to legitimise bloodletting in democracies leads nowhere good.

While consolidating an ideological and strategic bloc with Russia, Iran and North Korea, China is seeking nuclear parity...
26/11/2025

While consolidating an ideological and strategic bloc with Russia, Iran and North Korea, China is seeking nuclear parity with the United States, technological and economic autonomy, and greater control over global supply chains and international payments. The implications for Western security are profound.

The New Cold War is here | David Roche

As China consolidates an ideological and strategic bloc with Russia, Iran and North Korea, it seeks nuclear parity with the United States, technological and economic autonomy, and greater control over global supply chains and international payments. The implications for Western security are profound...

From a wartime airfield to a landmark of regional development — now under threat — Humberside Airport's story deserves t...
26/11/2025

From a wartime airfield to a landmark of regional development — now under threat — Humberside Airport's story deserves to be better known.

Elegy for Humberside Airport | Juliette Bretan

From a wartime airfield to a landmark of regional development — now under threat — Humberside Airport's story deserves to be better known.

A new biography shows how Schopenhauer’s philosophy of universal suffering might offer surprising grounds for hope.Schop...
25/11/2025

A new biography shows how Schopenhauer’s philosophy of universal suffering might offer surprising grounds for hope.

Schopenhauer’s philosophy of hope | Charlotte Stroud

A new biography shows how Schopenhauer’s philosophy of universal suffering might offer surprising grounds for hope.

France's rebuilding of its diplomatic credibility after the Franco-Prussian War offers enduring lessons in national resi...
25/11/2025

France's rebuilding of its diplomatic credibility after the Franco-Prussian War offers enduring lessons in national resilience.

How France overcame defeat in the Franco-Prussian War | Paul Cormarie

France's rebuilding of its diplomatic credibility after the Franco-Prussian War offers enduring lessons in national resilience.

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Welcome to Engelsberg Ideas

Engelsberg Ideas is a new home for great writing and podcasts on history and culture, featuring leading writers and thinkers.

Although this is an exciting new publishing venture, it also has deep roots – in the Engelsberg Seminars that have taken place for more than two decades every June in Engelsberg, Sweden, at the centre owned by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation. An illustration of Engelsberg is above.

The Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit is a private foundation, founded in 1947, with the primary purpose of promoting scientific and scholarly research. Its focus today is on the humanities, and on social sciences, working with leading scholars and universities around the world.

Engelsberg Ideas features essays, historical portraits and notebooks from our editorial team. There is a regular podcast – History Lessons – each featuring a leading historian, and a monthly podcast on the big themes and trends shaping geopolitics.