A new biography of Stephen Hawking presents the renowned physicist not simply as a scientific celebrity who overcame severe disability, but as a researcher whose relationships, intellectual clarity and determination were central
A reunion at the Home of Veterans in Akuregoda leads Admiral Ravi Wijegunaratne back to memories of his service in Mannar in 1985, when a decision to travel with an Army convoy
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The United Kingdom is facing renewed pressures for constitutional fragmentation, as Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland pursue greater autonomy and, in some cases, independence. A breakup would be far more than a
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by Nil Sanjoy Hazarika’s most recent work, Lal Thanhawla: The Boy from Zarkawt, and the Making of Mizoram is presented as a biography, but its real ambition is considerably larger. “What started
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The debate over genocide in Sri Lanka has become increasingly entangled with politics, selective outrage and competing historical narratives. From British atrocities in Uva-Wellassa and LTTE massacres and expulsions to the unresolved
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The passage argues that Britain is gradually erasing its historical identity by replacing recognition of figures such as Churchill, Austen, Turner and Turing with symbols of a more multicultural and politically correct
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Many nevertheless portrayed themselves as misguided idealists who had become disillusioned with Nazi methods after 1933. Löpelmann went further. Before a denazification commission, he presented himself as a victim of the Nazis
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Mahinda’s father, D. A. Rajapaksa, entered politics only after the death of his elder brother, D. M. Rajapaksa. D. M. Rajapaksa was a strong leftist. He entered politics by working to secure
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Tucked into a Sept. 10, 1998, intelligence report sent to President Bill Clinton’s White House was a warning that, more than a quarter-century later, reads with striking prescience. A CIA analyst wrote
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1. Manic “Change Round” In Sigmund Freud’s “Mourning and Melancholia,” the melancholic is in want of an object, never knowing exactly what they may have lost. Melancholy transforms the object-loss of mourning into
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Sky News published a video this month that opens on a rigged explosive device and a pickax under a stark title card, “Inside the Taliban’s Museum of Death.” Three seconds pass before
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Editor’s Note: This essay was originally published in The New Yorker two months after 9/11. The tragedy re-engineered the West while imposing a huge cost on the rest of the world. Twenty-five
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Princess Astrid of Norway has died at the age of 94, the Norwegian royal household announced on Friday, 11 September. “Princess Astrid has died,” the royal household said in a brief statement,
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The Pathfinder Foundation and the Embassy of the United States of America in Sri Lanka have launched a lecture series marking the 250th anniversary of American independence, opening with a discussion on
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The television series Asking the Vast Earth (问苍茫, 2023) opens with a scene of a young Mao Zedong swimming in the Xiang River, swollen from the heavy rains. A fisherman calls from the bank
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Those demanding accountability from Sri Lanka over alleged war crimes are strangely silent about LTTE atrocities. Under Velupillai Prabhakaran, the LTTE killed hundreds of members of rival militant groups, assassinated President Ranasinghe
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