The Burning Archive

Over the next months until October in the Burning Archive podcast I am inviting you to participate in this unique booklover's reading challenge. And the challenge opens a unique window onto the multipolar world's cultural history. Can we read together all 120 winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature since 1901 with me? How proud would you feel to be able to say I have read a little bit of every winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature? This week I look at the winners from 1907 to 1913, from the British-Indian poet of empire, Rudyard Kipling, to the great Indian writer who saw beyond empire and nation while remaining rooted in his home of Bengal, Rabindranath Tagore.

What is the essential skill Western leaders need to regain a sense of reality, and to provide better leadership, diplomacy and statecraft? The great historian of ideas and political philosopher, Isaiah Berlin, proposed a solution. What can you learn from his 1996 essay, "On political judgment"? We all complain about the quality of our political leaders. They seem to have lost touch with reality. Politico recently wrote that the G7 meeting in Italy - "6 lame ducks and Giorgia Meloni" - looked more like a last supper than a display of Western power. But advice on how to fix the problem of political leadership is harder to find. The great historian of ideas and political philosopher, Isaiah Berlin, proposed a solution. What can you learn from his 1996 essay, "On political judgment"? You can read this essay in Isaiah Berlin, The Sense of Reality. Try my new introductory course on geopolitics and history). You can support the Burning Archive by contributing at: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/burningarchive Subscribe to my free weekly email to receive insights from world history in a weekly essay on Saturday at https://jeffrich.substack.com Buy my book Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Bureaucrat: Writing on Governing

Rabindranath Tagore was a great Bengali and Indian writer who won the Nobel Prize in 1913, just before the world went to war. In 1917, in the depth of World War One he wrote his essay, "Nationalism in the West". I read the full essay, and introduce you to the reasons Tagore why this essay connects to debates about nationalism, "globalism", and the possibility for peaceful cooperation between peoples of many nations. Subscribe to my free weekly email to receive insights from world history and literature in a weekly essay on Saturday at https://jeffrich.substack.com You can support the Burning Archive by contributing at: Buy Me A Coffee https://www.buymeacoffee.com/burningarchive

Rabindranath Tagore was a great Bengali and Indian writer who won the Nobel Prize in 1913, just before the world went to war. In 1941, in the depth of World War Two he wrote his essay, "Crisis in Civilization". I read the full essay, and introduce you to the reasons Tagore still speaks so powerfully to India and the world today. Subscribe to my free weekly email to receive insights from world history and literature in a weekly essay on Saturday at https://jeffrich.substack.com You can support the Burning Archive by contributing at: Buy Me A Coffee https://www.buymeacoffee.com/burningarchive

Please enjoy my reflections on re-reading Foucault's classic history of madness after 40 years. I also share my audiobook reading of the preface and conclusion of Michel Foucault's famous, ground-breaking history of mental illness, Madness and Civilization. I give you an introduction to the book and share what I discovered when I reread Michael Foucault, Madness and Civilization, after 40 years. The books discussed in this podcast are available here: - Michael Foucault, Madness and Civilization https://amzn.to/3UJQ1Am - Michael Foucault, History of Madness https://amzn.to/4dGT6tz You can support the Burning Archive by contributing at: - Patreon: https://patreon.com/BurningArchive - Buy Me A Coffee https://www.buymeacoffee.com/burningarchive Subscribe to my free weekly email to receive insights from world history in a weekly essay on Saturday at https://jeffrich.substack.com