David J. Garrow

1 month ago | thespectator.com | Ian Buruma |Philip Mansel |Lee Langley |David J. Garrow

At 8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945, a B-29 bomber called Enola Gay dropped “Little Boy” over Hiroshima. The thermal radiation from the atom bomb was 900 times more searing than the sun. An estimated 118,661 civilians died, horribly. Survivors staggered about with their skin in shreds, their intestines hanging out and their blacked and bleeding faces grotesquely disfigured.

1 month ago | thespectator.com | Philip Mansel |Freddy Gray |Gavin Mortimer |David J. Garrow

The role of personality and charm in running a state is one theme of Richard Bassett’s superb book, Maria Theresa: Empress, the first English biography of Maria Theresa since Edward Crankshaw’s in 1969. The different parts of the Habsburg monarchy — Austria, Tyrol, Bohemia, Hungary, Croatia and Milan — had little in common except dynasty, geography and Catholicism. Yet, partly owing to Maria Theresa’s force of character, this complex tapestry of nationalities remained a great power.

1 month ago | thespectator.com | Freddy Gray |Derek VanBuskirk |Ben Domenech |David J. Garrow

Might peace in Ukraine be prelude to an even more serious conflict between the United States of America and China? Is that a hysterical question? The deal-or-no-deal drama starring Donald Trump, Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders has dominated the news in recent days, so much so that the latest clash between Washington and Beijing has gone all but unnoticed.

1 month ago | thespectator.com | Mark Galeotti |Derek VanBuskirk |Ben Domenech |David J. Garrow

The United States’s decision to suspend all intelligence sharing with Kyiv is a less visible but almost as serious and more immediate blow to Ukraine as the pause to arms deliveries. It also raises worrying questions about the future of intelligence sharing amongst Western allies. Ukraine is used to supplies of military materiel coming in fits and starts, and can and does stockpile ammunition, spare parts and the like to cover the dry seasons.

1 month ago | thespectator.com | David J. Garrow |Owen Matthews |Matthew Lynn |Kate Andrews

Russia’s war on Ukraine presages a dire future for all of Europe unless Vladimir Putin’s military is decisively defeated. That is the powerful and persuasive argument advanced in Keir Giles’s new book.