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
“Is this how Rome treats its heroes?” These words echo across the Colosseum in Gladiator II. They are spoken by Acacius, a soldier who had given everything to Rome, only to be condemned
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Scientists have uncovered evidence of barley harvesting and consumption in southern Uzbekistan dating back 9,000 years, a discovery that reshapes understanding of where and how agriculture first took root. The findings, published
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As China prepares to commemorate the 80th anniversary of victory over fascism on September 3, 2025, global attention turns to Beijing’s military parade. Speculation swirls about which world leaders will join President Xi Jinping—Putin’s presence
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Global political history is punctuated by state entities that, after vanishing from the international stage, have reemerged in new forms—sometimes radically transformed, sometimes strikingly faithful to their origins. These revived states—polities that
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A new study reveals that West Germany’s early postwar civil service relied heavily on former Nazi officials, raising questions about the foundations of the young democracy. According to research published in The
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Eighty years after the end of the Second World War, Japan is beginning to acknowledge a group of victims long overlooked — the children of traumatised veterans whose post-war lives were marked
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In July, a few days after the centenary of Frantz Fanon’s birth, I had lunch with his daughter, Mireille Fanon Mendès-France. When I commented that Fanon had died so young, at thirty-nine,
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Ayano Hirashima was just eight years old when she became a living witness to one of the darkest turning points in human history—not once, but twice. On the morning of August 6,
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A long-overlooked act of wartime humanity has finally received the recognition it deserves. Eighty years after American and Japanese soldiers laid down their arms on a remote Okinawan beach, descendants, locals, and
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From the Pacific edges of Port Angeles to the warm winds of the Lion Nation, the sea carries stories that refuse to be forgotten. It has been just over a month since
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