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American Nihilism & NATO's Defeat
2
China never entered the Thucydides Trap that US history invented.
17
Unlimited Empire and America’s Unipolar Illusion
Walter Benjamin on the Angel of History
2
The fall of the US dollar and global power?
Niall Ferguson on collapses: Soviet Union and USA

Recent posts

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The Burning Archive Program for 2025
Slow Reads, World History Deep Dives, Modernism's Greatest Year, and Live Calls with Angels of History
3
12 Gifts of 2024 on my Substack
And what I will give my readers in 2025
4
Three historic changes in 2024: West Asia, India, & AI
And what is coming up on the Burning Archive
Korea Crisis: Deep causes of the real crisis of Korea and US power
Special Video Interview with Korea expert, KJ Noh
Anxiety about Russia after American Primacy
Western elites have lost all judgment about Russia’s role in the world order.
1
Unlimited Empire and America’s Unipolar Illusion
Final part of my reading guide to the history of the post-1945 world order
Chinese History after the ‘Thucydides Trap’
How can citizens of the West free themselves of historical illusions about China that drive the world to war?
2
China never entered the Thucydides Trap that US history invented.
What is China’s role in the world after American Primacy?
17
Undeclared Empires (USA & USSR) in the Cold War
The Cold War and the postwar world order emerged in a struggle between two undeclared empires - the USA and the USSR - in an unstable, decolonising…
5
India, after the postwar world order
What will be the global role of India, that is Bharat, after the breakdown of the postwar world order, led by the USA since 1945?
1
How decolonization shaped the postwar world order
Conventional geopolitics accounts of the postwar world order leave out one essential feature: decolonization.
43:01
Before the World Changed: Reading Tagore's Prescient 1941 Essay
Rabindranath Tagore, Crisis in Civilization, audio reading
2

🗺️Post-1945 world order guide

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Unlimited Empire and America’s Unipolar Illusion
Final part of my reading guide to the history of the post-1945 world order
Undeclared Empires (USA & USSR) in the Cold War
The Cold War and the postwar world order emerged in a struggle between two undeclared empires - the USA and the USSR - in an unstable, decolonising…
5
How decolonization shaped the postwar world order
Conventional geopolitics accounts of the postwar world order leave out one essential feature: decolonization.
Before the World Changed: Reading Tagore's Prescient 1941 Essay
Rabindranath Tagore, Crisis in Civilization, audio reading
2
43:01
How the partition of Eurasia defined world disorder after 1945
The history of post-1945 world order series, part two

🔑Keys to History

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Korea Crisis: Deep causes of the real crisis of Korea and US power
Special Video Interview with Korea expert, KJ Noh
Before the World Changed: Reading Tagore's Prescient 1941 Essay
Rabindranath Tagore, Crisis in Civilization, audio reading
2
43:01
Will Trump end the American-led post-war world order?
The post-1945 world is coming to an end. Will Trump hammer the final nails in the coffin of the American-led post-war world order? What can we learn…
John Darwin After Tamerlane and the Post-1945 World
Listen now |
38:43
Imagine a world free of nations
Can we imagine a more peaceful world of dialogue between peoples, freed from the narrow identities of nations and globalisation?

💼Guide to geopolitics

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Imagine you are a Foreign Minister: Globalisation
Guide to geopolitics and history (part seven)
1
Imagine you are a Foreign Minister: Great Power Narratives
Guide to geopolitics and history (part six)
2
Imagine you are a Foreign Minister: Power Players
Guide to geopolitics and history (part five)
3
Imagine you are a Foreign Minister: 7 Power Factors
Guide to geopolitics and history (part four)
1
Imagine you are a Foreign Minister - International Politics
Guide to geopolitics and history (part three)
5
Imagine you are a Foreign Minister - Geography
Guide to Geopolitics and History
Imagine you are a Foreign Minister. Myths of Geopolitics
... and you need to make sense of geopolitics with history
11

🥇Nobel Archive (121 Literature Prizes)

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Han Kang wins the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature
and what is coming up on the Burning Archive
2
Olga Tokarczuk's tender narrator of Nobel histories
The 2018 Nobel Prize for Literature went to Olga Tokarczuk whose writing crosses borders, plays with genres, and tenderly shows us how to live well now…
6
The 2024 Abuse Scandal that Rewrote Alice Munro's Nobel Legacy
The 2013 Nobel Prize for Literature went to Alice Munro whose famous short stories did not disclose the scandal that in 2024 burned her reputation.
3
How Elfriede Jelinek unleashed language to smash society's cliches.
The 2004 Nobel Prize for Literature went to Elfriede Jelinek who unleashed language to smash society’s clichés.
1
No end of fun with Wisława Szymborska
1996 Nobel Prize for Literature
2

🎧Audibook minis

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40:23
Walter Benjamin on the Angel of History
and his surprising connection to the Burning Archive
2
43:01
Before the World Changed: Reading Tagore's Prescient 1941 Essay
Rabindranath Tagore, Crisis in Civilization, audio reading
2
38:43
John Darwin After Tamerlane and the Post-1945 World
Listen now |
1:00:20
Olga Tokarczuk, The Tender Narrator
An audio-mini reading of the 2018 Nobel Lecture
36:15
How the history of emotions can heal childhood sexual abuse
In 2013 Alice Munro won the Nobel Prize, but kept secret the sexual abuse of her daughter.
3
1:06:58
Marina Tsvetaeva, The Poet in Time
Russian poet Marina Tsvetaeva is one of the most renowned poets of 20th-century Russia.
1:21:52
Inga Clendinnen, Representing the Holocaust
commentary and audiobook mini from the Burning Archive
1
23:17
Reading the Holocaust
Inga Clendinnen on how to challenge the Gorgon effect
1
Please browse the burning archive where the past is not dead, the past is not even past.
© 2025 Jeff Rich
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