Engelsberg Ideas is free to read, providing access to excellence.
Engelsberg Ideas is the home to great writing from the world’s leading thinkers on history, culture, and ideas, featuring essays, historical portraits and regular podcasts.
18/07/2025
Unveiled 125 years ago, the Métropolitan marked Paris’s leap into modernity, with Guimard’s once-controversial station entrances now enduring emblems of the city’s spirit.
A paean to the Paris Métro | Agnès Poirier
Unveiled 125 years ago, the Métropolitan marked Paris’s leap into modernity at the turn of the century, with Guimard’s once-controversial station entrances now enduring emblems of the city's spirit.
18/07/2025
Reading Mein Kampf, 100 years on from its first appearance, can help us understand a historical moment which, as it fades into the distance, still profoundly structures our world.
A window into Hitler’s soul | Samuel Rubinstein
Reading Mein Kampf, 100 years on from its first appearance, can help us better understand a historical moment which still so profoundly structures our world, as it fades into the distance.
17/07/2025
India’s war on the Mughal Empire | Richard M. Eaton
The profound legacies of the Mughal Empire, forged through a remarkable fusion of Central Asian and Indian traditions, and of Persian and Sanskrit worlds, are now under siege from a mystical, and mythical, vision of India’s past.
17/07/2025
The art of least resistance | Elisabeth Braw
Russian musicians' responses to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine raise a vital question: when should artists be expected to denounce the actions of their governments?
17/07/2025
As a result of Israeli and American attacks, the Islamic Republic’s problems have only intensified. Its next steps could prove definitive for both the country and its ruling establishment.
Iran’s forever crisis is far from over | Afshon Ostovar
As a result of Israeli and American attacks, the Islamic Republic’s problems have only intensified. Its next steps could prove definitive for both the country and its ruling establishment.
16/07/2025
The Constant Wife – a sparkling revival of Somerset Maugham’s masterpiece | Alexandra Wilson
A creative re-casting of W. Somerset Maugham's 'The Constant Wife' retains the delightful humour of the original while adding an abundance of clever and amusing innovations.
16/07/2025
Logistics, the Allies’ wonder weapon | Duncan Weldon
Throughout the Second World War, the Western allies prioritised industrial production over ever-larger armies, fighting a high-tech, mechanised form of warfare.
15/07/2025
Pierre Boulez created the music of the future | Benjamin Poore
The composer-conductor Pierre Boulez felt that the established musical forms of the West had been exhausted. His aim was to build them up again from scratch.
15/07/2025
The West in the age of Westlessness | Samir Puri
What does it mean to defend Western values in a less Western-dominated age?
14/07/2025
In the mid-1960s, Brazil's leaders were on the verge of joining the United States' war in Vietnam. The power of public opinion forced them to back down.
How Brazil avoided disaster in Vietnam | Ryan A. Musto
In the mid-1960s, Brazil's leaders were on the verge of joining the United States' disastrous war in Vietnam, until the power of public opinion forced them to back down.
14/07/2025
The lavish, contested prose of Lawrence Durrell preserves an Eastern Mediterranean that has long disappeared – if it ever existed at all.
Lawrence Durrell’s lost Mediterranean | Guy Stagg
The lavish, contested prose of Lawrence Durrell preserves an Eastern Mediterranean that has long disappeared – if it ever existed at all.
11/07/2025
Agent Zo, Elżbieta Zawacka's cover name, was one of the most highly decorated women in Polish history, and one of the most brilliant spies in the history of espionage.
Agent Zo, the spy who saved Poland | Clare Mulley
Agent Zo, Elżbieta Zawacka's cover name, was one of the most highly decorated women in Polish history, and one of the most brilliant spies in the history of espionage.
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Engelsberg Ideas is a new home for great writing and podcasts on history and culture, featuring leading writers and thinkers.
Although this is an exciting new publishing venture, it also has deep roots – in the Engelsberg Seminars that have taken place for more than two decades every June in Engelsberg, Sweden, at the centre owned by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation. An illustration of Engelsberg is above.
The Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit is a private foundation, founded in 1947, with the primary purpose of promoting scientific and scholarly research. Its focus today is on the humanities, and on social sciences, working with leading scholars and universities around the world.
Engelsberg Ideas features essays, historical portraits and notebooks from our editorial team. There is a regular podcast – History Lessons – each featuring a leading historian, and a monthly podcast on the big themes and trends shaping geopolitics.
Sign up to the weekly email from the editorial team to hear from us – once a week.
We hope you will find much that is stimulating and enjoyable on Engelsberg Ideas.
Welcome.
Mattias Hessérus (Publisher) and Iain Martin (Editor)
