Category archives: English

23 oktober 2021 On page 4 of his new book “Reset” Mark Elchardus quotes a paragraph from a Bruce Springsteen song. This should not surprise anyone. Years ago i sometimes told friends that Bruce was the most important political philosopher I knew. In his songs Springsteen has on some occasions reflected the individual that fights […]

23 augustus 2021 After a long delay and incentivized by recent events in Afghanistan I’ve only recently read Khaled Hosseini’s book “The Kite Runner”. A central item around which the story has been woven is the treatment of the Hazara, a minority in Afghanistan. They suffer from discrimination both by Pashtun tribes and Taliban. I […]

21 augustus 2021 In the second part of his biography Jordi Pujol describes how he built the Catalonian institutions shortly after the death of dictator Franco. Reading this biography it becomes clear how the political situations of Flanders and Catalonia differ profoundly from each other: (1) While Flemings form the majority in Belgium, Catalonia is […]

21 augustus 2021 Sometimes the statement is made that politics is nowadays moving to the right, that public opinion is adopting opinions which were considered 20 years ago to be rightist or even extreme rightist. In that context specially reference is made to two different themes: (1) discussions on migration and citizenship; (2) deconstruction of […]

21 juli 2021 In this book Andric describes the history of the bridge over the Drina in the Bosnian (Serbian) city of Visegrad. He describes how it was being built on orders of the son- in- law of the sultan, Mehmet Pasha Sokolli, and follows its life until what happens during World War 1. It […]

21 juli 2021 In this book, the French author, describes the whereabouts of seven young people who leave their native ground of Lorraine for Paris, after receiving a training from professor Bouteiller, a Kantian professor of filosophy. We follow how they live and survive in the French capital. Two of them, Racadot and Mouchefrin, become […]

18 mei 2021 Israël was born with a sin. In 1948, as a result of a war between Israel and its Arab neighbours, some 750.000 Palestinans fled the war zone and left their homes and grounds behind. The Israeli authorities never allowed them to return. Since then they and their descendants (6 million people by […]

13 maart 2021 In this book Gerstle succesfully explains major constraints in American politics which enable us to understand current explosive tensions between Democrats and Republicans and sometimes tensions within both parties. From independance on there existed a major contrast between the Central State and the different states. As described by Gerstle, it seems as […]

2 februari 2021 After the victory of liberalism in 1989 the world changed in one open space. People who did not feel at home in this new environment experienced these developments as a chaos organised by a progressive elite. These people were in need of a Structure that would protect and defend them and in […]

8 januari 2020 In this book Lionel Shriver tells the story how the Mandible family deals with the decay of the USA and the dollar, and the loss of the family fortune. As such she describes how the family deals with “the notion of a lost everything, a permanent, irreversible decline – it’s alien to […]

1 januari 2020 Dear reader, Hereby i wish you all the best for 2020. You might notice that I’m updating this website with a lower frequency and maybe you have the impression that my insights are not as sharp as they used to be. Do not worry about this. I have started writing my next […]

17 december 2019 Something I try to understand already for a while is why so many immigrants want to reach the United Kingdom, even at the risk of their lives. Based on what I find in newspapers, I come to the conclusion that the immigrants are not interested in the sunny climate, the delicious food, […]

14 december 2019 Now that Brexit will have been done, it is clear that the unity of the United Kingdom is under threat. That unity is not evident; it requires an explanation why it exists in the form that it does. I dare to believe, and indeed this is speculative, that the United Kingdom lasted […]

14 december 2019 Ursula von der leyen, the new President of the European Commission, presented the “Green Deal” to the European Parliament. The intention is to make “Europe” carbon/climate-neutral by 2050. On 12-13 December the Green Deal was discussed at the level of the European Commission which reached a “unanimous” decision (with an exception for […]