Cold war
Blair gave Putin silver cufflinks for his birthday, archives reveal
Files show PM favoured allowing Putin ‘a position on the top table’ and encouraging him to integrate with west
Ben Quinn and Caroline Davies
30, Dec, 2022 @12:01 AM
Top 10 books about the iron curtain
The dividing line between capitalism and communism which descended across Europe after the second world war inspired spy writers and historians, polemicists and memoirists
Timothy Phillips
28, Dec, 2022 @12:00 PM
Sixty years on from the Cuban missile crisis, the US has learned its lessons – but Putin has not | Vladislav Zubok
Some in the Russian president’s entourage are searching for a way out of the Ukraine conflict. They should look to the history books, says academic and author Vladislav Zubok
Vladislav Zubok
22, Dec, 2022 @1:00 PM
Here’s a tortoise I found crossing the Albanian border. It should be that easy for all of us | Lea Ypi
Meandering across an artificial line that divides humanity, the tortoise had a lot to teach my children – and me, says the LSE professor and author Lea Ypi
Lea Ypi
20, Dec, 2022 @7:00 AM
Britain’s bunkers offer little chance of survival after a nuclear attack | Letters
Letters: David Saunders and Mark Newbury write that, with no bunker provision for civilians, most of us won’t have access – and those who do should not expect to live long
02, Dec, 2022 @5:09 PM
Sixty years ago, true statecraft avoided a nuclear war. We need that again over Ukraine | Jonathan Steele
The danger of a quick slide into all-out nuclear war between Russia and the US is less, but in other ways the risk we face is more alarming, says author and former Moscow correspondent Jonathan Steele
Jonathan Steele
04, Nov, 2022 @4:00 PM
Neal Ascherson at 90: ‘Journalism was easier in my time. You had more time to think’
The distinguished former Observer foreign correspondent reflects on an extraordinary life – beginning with a horrifying brush with a Luftwaffe machine gunner
Tim Adams
23, Oct, 2022 @7:00 AM
Revealed: the secret British plan to keep Italy’s communists from power
Newly declassified files expose the Foreign Office’s dirty tricks campaign to influence the knife-edge 1976 election result
James Oliver and Nicholas Gilby
02, Oct, 2022 @6:00 AM
Command by Lawrence Freedman review – inside the war room
From Korea to Ukraine, a brilliant study of the politics and personalities that drive modern conflicts
John Simpson
17, Sep, 2022 @6:30 AM
The Observer view on Mikhail Gorbachev: he drew a line under a wretched past but failed to usher in a brighter future | Observer editorial
Hailed a hero by the west for banishing Stalin’s legacy and ending the cold war, he was ultimately reviled at home
Observer editorial
04, Sep, 2022 @5:30 AM
Once the world had Gorbachev and Mandela. Now we have Trump, Johnson and Truss | Jonathan Freedland
The Soviet leader’s death is a reminder that the ‘great man theory’ of history is truer than we might like to think, says Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland
Jonathan Freedland
02, Sep, 2022 @4:23 PM
A peaceful yet radical social transformer: Mikhail Gorbachev leaves a blazing legacy | Archie Brown
No western leader could have predicted his progressive reforms. But war between his country and Ukraine was a devastating blow, says Archie Brown, an emeritus professor of politics at Oxford University
Archie Brown
31, Aug, 2022 @2:01 PM
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