Christopher de Bellaigue

A Visionary Psychopath

The Ottoman sultan Selim I is a near-perfect illustration of Machiavelli’s premise that the powerful individual is the driver of history.

The Pillage of India

William Dalrymple’s ‘The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire’ and Shashi Tharoor’s ‘Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India’

The River

The Seduction of Jihad

World Cup 2018: England

Some 20 million Britons saw the Sweden match on telly. Viewing figures of this kind belong to another era, before the Internet punctured the idea of nations’ watching the same thing at the same time. What is going on? 

The New Europeans

Europe has become more anti-Muslim as it has become more Muslim.

Half-Baked Revolt in Iran

Vengeance in Britain

For all the gestures of inter-communal solidarity that have been given much publicity since the June 18 attack outside a London mosque, the more significant and ominous sentiment has been one of vindication.

Iran: Still Waiting for Democracy

Iran's Uneasy Election

The economic miracle that was promised by the Hassan Rouhani government hasn’t happened, and as Iran’s presidential election approaches, the sense of anti-climax is palpable.

Remembering Bob Silvers

On the late editor of The New York Review

Sultan Erdoğan

In April Turks will vote in a national referendum that will, if successful, give President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan increased powers; he could stay in power until 2029.

Iran: A Private Agony

Between the lines of Asghar Farhadi’s The Salesman is a malignant subtext about Iranian society, which, despite the uneven entry of egalitarian values, remains wedded to old-fashioned honor codes.

Erdoğan: All-Powerful

The leader of Turkey’s main opposition party leader recently accused President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his allies of “creating their own Baathist state.” Will Trump care?

A Murderous Turning Point in Turkey

Turkey Chooses Erdogan

Since a group of senior military officers, backed by thousands of armed soldiers, came close to toppling him on the night of July 15, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has sought comfort in the bosom of his angry, exhilarated people. The country has spent the past three weeks in a state of collective hyperventilation. The combination of nationalism and religiosity is like nothing I have seen in twenty years of following Turkish politics.

France at War

A chilling speech by Marine Le Pen, leader of France’s National Front, is a sign that French politics has shifted toward militarism, xenophobia, and the all-powerful state—toward fascism.

A Different Migrant Story

In Dheepan, Jacques Audiard makes his interest in improvised family structures the film’s central idea, when Dheepan, his purported wife Yalini, and the nine-year-old girl they present as their daughter Illayaal, create a family designed to win the sympathy of immigration authorities.

Last Days of Persia

The photographs in “Eye of the Shah: Qajar Court Photography and the Persian Past” are filled with humanity: self-love, pretension, tyranny, hesitancy, and charm.

The Sultan of Turkey

The consequences of Erdoğan’s dominance