“Orbán should have been born in a big country like Germany,” a Hungarian acquaintance once told me, in typical East European fashion. “His genius is wasted in Hungary.” An optimistic observer might retort that everyone has an opinion on Hungary…
It may be a full 79 years since the end of World War II. But leave it to the deputy foreign minister of Poland, Władysław Bartoszewski by name, to remind us of the virulent anti-semitism that both brought on the…
Some years ago, I took a daytime train trip from London north to Edinburgh, Scotland. I particularly enjoyed the journey as a devotee of English-European literature and history. Because I knew that unlike any route in my much younger country,…
In democratic countries, one would expect that incompetent and corrupt politicians actively involved in scandals, deadly disasters, or other catastrophes would get voted out of office, fired, prosecuted, or at least retired into obscurity. But if they are pitching for…
On Monday, Nov. 25, United Arab Emirates officials released the names and photographs of three Uzbek nationals arrested for the murder of Chabad Lubavitch emissary Rabbi Zvi Kogan. The Israel intelligence agency Mossad had been working with UAE security authorities…
It was while living in Amsterdam, in early 1999, that I realized Europe was in trouble. Let me pause for a moment to apologize for repeating myself: I wrote about that epiphany in my 2006 book While Europe Slept, and…
Benjamin Franklin, an Englishman born in the colonial town of Boston in 1706 but who chose to separate himself from the rule of a tyrannical British government as one of our American Founding Fathers, once wrote that “People willing to…
Solving the Mystery of Europe’s Rise In October 2024, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm announced that the Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded to three economists who studied why some countries are rich while others remain poor….
British journalist Zoe Strimpel has written a column against Spain in The Spectator. I don’t know, I wouldn’t want to jump the gun, but it sounds like Strimpel, after visiting us, is not “another satisfied customer.” Well, you will understand…
