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 individual path to wisdom.
Wisdom is to live in tune with the mode of the changing world
—Thiruvalluvar
What 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.
Celebrations of what I love from millennia of world literature.
Readings to reconnect you to the best that you have thought and read.
My guides to how to make sense of the world with history
My companionship in the pursuit of a life of the mind in the digital age
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
Special features
I have three special features running at the Burning Archive currently:
120 Nobels Reading Challenge - in which I am going to read and write portraits of every one of 120 winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature since 1901. Join the fun and rediscover some favourite or forgotten writers. (available for all subscribers)
Imagine You Are a Foreign Minister - Guide to Geopolitics and History - in which I condense into seven briefings (in the manner I mastered over 33 years as a government official) the essentials to making sense of “geopolitics” with world history. (fully available for paid subscribers)
Audiobook Minis - in which I read classic writing on history from various traditions, starting with Isaiah Berlin’s essays, “On political judgment” and “The sense of reality” (fully available for paid subscribers).
More special features are coming soon. My aim is to make the Burning Archive a lot more than just another email newsletter.
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
What you will discover in the Burning Archive
The Burning Archive began as a written blog in 2015. My aims were:
To reflect on our changing world in way that helps us love that which we cherish in the culture, and to adapt wisely to events that concern us. And never forget, the past is not dead. The past is not even past.
In essence, the Burning Archive today has the same spirit. But the way it has evolved. I have sought to make sense of the world with history in books, podcasts, a YouTube channel, and now this substack. Here you get the full experience.
As I change and learn so too does the Burning Archive. My approach to writing here has changed over time. The style and form of my posts will change too.
I offer all subscribers a weekly free post on Saturdays. I record a voiceover for the longer articles, so they are great to listen to on a weekend walk. The topics of the free posts will change with the seasons. Until October 2024 they focus on my 120 Nobels Reading Challenge.
Free subscribers get previews and occasional full access to my paid content.
How to get most of the Burning Archive?
Please feel free to comment on posts, even old ones. Please explore my backlist. Listen to my audio and watch my videos. I want to make this publication more than a newsletter, but a rounded cultural experience. Your participation on past and current posts makes that experience richer.
Paid subscribers can join intelligent, open-minded conversation about the deeper currents of our lives. In the full Burning Archive experience, you can
read along with great history books
watch and converse in bonus workshops
listen to my audiobook readings
dive deeply into world history with my guides and exploratory essays, and
comment on my deep dives into how history is shaking the world today.
The offer at the Burning Archive will continue to evolve in response to your feedback. Your support in subscribing, reading, and commenting on the Burning Archive is invaluable. I learn so much from my readers and am grateful for your support. Please comment and let me know what you think.
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.
My reaction on your post: Population Collapse: Alarm, Alert, or Overreaction? The Real Data
I post it here because I'm shadow banned, on YT, I can post, but they either immediately vanish, or I can see my own reactions but they are not visible to any other user. (I log out, try to ind what I wrote and my comments cant be found, either from my computer or an other location and account).
Sorry for the inconvenience, feeling a bit frustrated. My promise to support Gaza with 500 a month for Doctors without Borders leaves me struggling to pay my bills, you're running a great channel, but there are another 5-10 great channels, all like to be paid, when the amputations end I might choose to diversify a bit. Be Good..
People with huge footprints, spending as much electrical energy on heating their open to outside air pools as say 10 average families from India use in a year, flooding the world with overpopulation problems talk... Funny enough also the same people that think they are the next best thing to god, and in Musk's example (which will be fairly typical for such personality disorder impaired intellects) have such ego's the they promulgate claims of being the sole drivers of entire industry branches. (I forgot what Musk's personal claims were, I'm sure there are many) Conveniently ignoring that their work actually rests on generations upon generations of work and thought laying the foundation on which he built his temporary capitalist Pyramid.
Musk couldn't have built his rocket without De architectura (c. 30-20 BC) described Heron's Engine, Chinese Black Powder Rockets, Isaac Newton's Laws of Motion, Tommy Flowers the mailman who invented the first programmable computer, Wernher von Braun's Saturn V and thousands upon thousands of other people who put in countless labour years worth of effort to allow Musk the building blocks to put together his Rockets. The complete arrogance of these people is astounding, their readiness to expunge historical truths and logic to sustain their decrepit philosophies is absolutely disturbing and greatly prophetic of decline through the loss of sense of reality.
I even don't understand, how I came out to your posts. I am old and very ignorant on the techniques. But somehow, I read about your writing about Marina Tsvetaeva. My painful subject. I love her and her poetry as she is my sister. Blok and she, who also devoted Blok wonderful poems.I write about tragedies of Russian Poets Before and After Revolution, but not as a historian, just as a philologist by education and a great admirer of their poetry. Thank you for Marina Tsvetaeva.