Communism, Confucius and confusion: China’s turn to the sages
An article for The Norwich Radical discussing Communist China’s complex relationship with the legacy of the old sage Confucius.
Politics
The Revolution that might have been
An excerpt from a feature I wrote for issue 70 of The New European about a short-lived experiment with democratic socialism that took place in the Democratic Republic of Georgia in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution.
Promising everything and nothing: Balfour’s fractured letter, 100 years on
A piece for The Norwich Radical exploring the eloquent equivocations and byzantine outworkings of the Balfour Declaration, published 100 years ago this week.
Examining ‘The Corbyn Effect’
A review for Social Europe of the first collection of essays to study the impact of the movement led by Jeremy Corbyn on the Labour Party and wider British and European politics.
Acid Corbynism, left accelerationism and Brighton sunshine – The World Transformed 2017
Where is the Corbyn movement going next? My review of four fascinating and exhausting days at The World Transformed festival that took place alongside the main Labour Party conference in Brighton.
Printing Utopia: digital fabrication and the meaning of craft
An excerpt from a feature for the September 2017 edition of boom saloon magazine. The great Victorian social critic William Morris feared the industrial age heralded the end of skilled workmanship. But do emerging 3D printing technologies open possibilities for a new era of craft, realised through techniques Morris could never have imagined?
Seeking Aurora: on interstellar arks, deep space and desire
For some the possibility of space exploration offers an escape from our sublunary cares. But as Kim Stanley Robinson’s novel Aurora warns, space may simply be too big to make a home beyond this world.