The real reason Trump’s Alaska summit matters
Donald Trump has never lacked confidence. ‘I’m here to get the thing over with,’ he said last week when announcing…
Israel’s attack on Iran has been planned for years
It was clear at the time that what happened on 7 October 2023 would change the Middle East. What was…
Will China soon rule the waves?
On Sunday morning, a communications cable between Sweden and Lithuania was damaged, almost certainly deliberately. Just hours later, the C-Lion…
Is it up to pop stars to save the planet now?
‘Walking by the banks of the Chao Praya on a breezy evening after a day of intense heat,’ writes Sunil…
The greed and hypocrisy of the opium trade continue to shock
Amitav Ghosh admits he found writing his history difficult because of the obscene profiteering and suffering he had to cover
A magnificent melting pot
Central Europe has shaped our history for centuries – but will the West always find it baffling, wonders Peter Frankopan
Is Putin winning?
The world order is changing in his favour
What is Asia?
Is it merely a European construct – and what, if anything, do its diverse peoples have in common, wonders Peter Frankopan
The war that changed the world
It was not a war to end all wars, writes James Howard-Johnston at the start of this illuminating and thought-provoking…
Magical mountains
A magnificent new history of the Caucasus earns Peter Frankopan’s highest praise
Kazakhstan is about the size of Europe — but we know almost nothing about it
Kazakhstan, say signs by the side of the road in this vast Central Asian country, is ‘a land of unity…
![The First Opium War: The East India Company’s Nemesis and other boats destroy the Chinese war junks in Anson Bay, 7 January 1841 [Bridgeman Art Library]](https://spectator-australia-preprod.go-vip.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/opiumwars.jpg?w=410&h=275&crop=1)
Global Britain was built as a narco-empire
China, wrote Adam Smith, is ‘one of the richest, that is, one of the most fertile, best cultivated, most industrious…
