Depending on large language models to generate smooth, plausible prose subtly degrades a writer's capacity to develop a voice of their own.

James Marriott's polemic 'The New Dark Ages' mourns the passing of the print age. But it oversells the triumphs of mass literacy, and says too little about the costs.

Convenience is remaking urban life in its own image. But a city worth living in is one where you have to rub along with other people.

Convenience is remaking urban life in its own image. But a city worth living in is one where you have to rub along with other people.

Western democracies play out their appetites for risk within the artificial confines of sport, an impulse that runs especially deep in the English national character.

Western democracies play out their appetites for risk within the artificial confines of sport, an impulse that runs especially deep in the English national character.

Essential reading, viewing, and listening from the EI editors.

The smartphone inherits anxieties about distraction that have haunted every new technology.

How did Weimar, the town of Goethe and Schiller, become the crucible of Germany's moral collapse? Katja Hoyer, author of Weimar: Life on the Edge of Catastrophe (https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/45...

Novels may refine judgement, but they cannot make us good.

Novels may refine judgement, but they cannot make us good.

The classical ideal of self-formation has been replaced by a sterile cult of productivity, simulating work and leisure while forfeiting both.

The classical ideal of self-formation has been replaced by a sterile cult of productivity, simulating work and leisure while forfeiting both.

In a post-literate world, reading is treated more like an assumed good than a skill to be actively practised.

In a post-literate world, reading is treated more like an assumed good than a skill to be actively practised.

The habits of speech and mind that shaped the history of Scotland’s north country still echo in the present.

The explorer Knud Rasmussen helped define Denmark’s Arctic ambitions while documenting Inuit culture at the very moment it was being transformed.

For your holiday weekend reading & reflection, here’s my 259th #ScholarSunday thread of great public scholarly writing, podcasts, new & forthcoming books from the past week. Add more below, share as w...

YouTube video by Engelsberg Ideas

Contributors to Engelsberg Ideas highlight the books they’ve enjoyed in 2025.

At a time of crisis at home and conflict abroad, it is vital that the UK's political and media class have an historically informed understanding of their country and its institutions.

At a time of crisis at home and conflict abroad, it is vital that the UK's political and media class have an historically informed understanding of their country and its institutions.

The industrialist Henry J. Kaiser played a pivotal role in the lightning mobilisation of American industry that took place after Pearl Harbor, a contribution that deserves wider recognition.

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.

This year marks the centenary of the publication of Franz Kafka’s novel, The Trial - a seminal work that continues to captivate and unsettle its readers. EI’s Alastair Benn (https://engelsbergideas.co...

One of the greatest European writers, Thomas Mann, born 150 years ago, dedicated his life to the pursuit of literary form. He left a monumental legacy.

A fascinating exhibition at the London Museum Docklands shows vividly how the River Thames has always been a wild place at the heart of urban civilisation. Its tides are constantly revealing fragments...

The National Gallery's Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300 ‒1350 captures key developments, in elegantly curated snapshots, of the early textures of Western Europe’s artistic vitality.

The National Gallery's Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300 ‒1350 captures key developments, in elegantly curated snapshots, of the early textures of Western Europe’s artistic vitality.

Caught between scepticism and spiritual hunger, the ‘crypto-religious’ are seeking something to believe in outside the parameters of organised religion.

Indian strikes on locations in Pakistan used by Kashmiri Jihadi organisations underline the enduring nature of the conflict, which has special risks for the UK.

The hedgerow is never truly permanent. The hedge in art reflects the hedge in reality, a shifting entity, a feature that is sometimes lost and sometimes replaced.

The classic bookstore is a potent if endangered symbol of what America was meant to be – a republic of small traders and independent thinking.

Greater well-being comes not from expanding medical categories but from adjusting our expectations of normal human experience, with all its inevitable discomforts, challenges, and variations.

The course of a late-Ottoman revolution warns us that liberators can easily turn into tyrants, and that new political dawns can be deceptive.

An imaginative account of the unique friendship between The Beatles' two creative geniuses provides an intriguing reinterpretation of their personal bond, but too often strays into speculative psychol...