Dive deeper in the Burning Archive

The why, what, who and how of the Burning Archive

Thank you for reading the Burning Archive. I wanted to share with all my readers the why, what, who and how of the Burning Archive. So, you can dive deeper into the stories I share here.

Here at the Burning Archive, I offer you ways to dive deeper into the real stories of history. To find deeper connections between your now and the world’s then. To make sense of a puzzling world with quality history and literature.

Why do I write the Burning Archive?

Why? Because history can help us all live in tune with a changing world. Our world is accelerated by social media. A little bit of slow culture, deep history and quality writing can help you find your path to wisdom.

Wisdom is to live in tune with the mode of the changing world

—Thiruvalluvar

Welcome to the Burning Archive Program 2025

In January 2025 I set out my full schedule for the Burning Archive in 2025.

• Slow Reads of Olga Tokarczuk, The Books of Jacob, and the Mahabharata

• World History Tours with weekly insights and book recommendations about five major ‘civilization-states’ of the world today

• Weekly Deep Dives into the histories of today’s great powers and cultures

• My celebration of Literary Modernism’s greatest year, 1925,

• Free, paid and ‘Angels of History’ membership benefits

I have also recently refreshed my home page to feature my Slow Reads, History Guides, and the World History Tour.

➕I have added pages to the navigation bar to make it easier to explore all my content over the last ten years of writing the Burning Archive.

On the navigation bar you can find

• Podcast - the complete backlist of all my podcasts and podcast voiceovers

• Notes - my Notes, in which I share brief thoughts, news and good reads

• Slow Reads - my how-to guide to Slow Reads of Olga Tokarczuk, The Books of Jacob, and the Mahabharata

• History Guides - my dedicated resources to help you reimagine the world with history

• The Nobel Archive - my complete indexed guide to 121 winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature - a unique resource for literature lovers.

• Decade of Burning Archives - my personally curated guide to my writing and content creation over the last ten years including my books, podcasts, videos, articles, and most loved posts here on Substack. I share the story of how I emerged from my life as a bureaucrat to become a writer on Substack.

What more you can find in the Burning Archive

My archive is always open. Please browse my backlist since 2022. Here are some of the best posts that new and longtime readers may want to read.

• Recommendations of the best books in world history today.

  • Six Intriguing new books from the Wolfson History Prize 👂

  • Richard Sakwa, The Lost Peace

  • How the Mongol Horde Changed the World: interview with Marie Favereau, historian

• Celebrations of what I love from millennia of world literature.

  • 120 Nobels literature challenge: first 30 years of forgotten, famous and favourite (1901-1929) 🎞️

  • Patrick White, Nobel Prize and Australia’s aborted cultural decolonisation

  • Glimpses of the Multipolar World, 9 September 2023.G20. Guterres. West’s Last Waltz. Nobel Ernaux. Huawei Chip. Cultural Refugees. Lalla.

• Readings to reconnect you to the best that you have thought and read.

  • Tagore and the decay of the West

  • Essays on the History of Destruction (on W.G. Sebald)

  • Isaiah Berlin, On Political Judgement 👂

• My guides to how to make sense of the world with history

  • When ancient civilizations become modern great powers

  • Is Western civilization a myth?

  • The era of non-Western globalisation has begun

  • Guide to geopolitics and history: Imagine you are a foreign minister

• My companionship in the pursuit of a life of the mind in the digital age

  • Letting Go of Politics

  • The Great Confinement and How I Am

You can also check my podcast, right here on Substack.

On my YouTube channel I share videos and occasional livestreams. There I focus more on book reviews and historical discussions of major geopolitical issues. You can check out two of my more popular videos

• Emmanuel Todd, The defeat of the West - main ideas explained

• Yuval Noah Harari’s really awful history.

I encourage readers to read the Burning Archive through the Substack App or the website. You get more that way, and it is easier to explore all my past features, workshops, podcasts, videos, and guides.

Who am I?

I share my unique perspective, based on my decades making sense of this puzzling world as a writer, historian, and ex-government official from Melbourne, Australia. You can explore my back story in my three books.

• Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Bureaucrat: Writing on Governing

• From the Burning Archive: Selected Essays and Fragments 2015-2022

• Gathering Flowers of the Mind: Collected Poems 1996-2020

I would love for you to join me in making the Burning Archive a special cultural experience that can help us all live in tune with a changing world.