Ecology Can't Be Everything? Well, It Is Everything.

William Ophuls and the Limits of Human Ambition

William Ophuls (1934–2025), political theorist and ecological thinker, known for exploring the limits of growth and the challenges of sustaining complex societies.

A Warning from the Age of Growth

In 1972, the Club of Rome published The Limits to Growth, warning that endless economic expansion on a finite planet was impossible. Most people dismissed the idea. Yet one political scientist took it very seriously. His name was William (Patrick) Ophuls.

More than fifty years later, Ophuls remains one of the most thought-provoking voices in environmental politics. While many writers focused on pollution, climate change, or resource depletion, he asked a different question: what happens to politics when a civilisation reaches ecological limits?

His answer was simple but unsettling. Modern societies were built during an extraordinary period of abundance. Cheap energy, abundant resources, and continuous economic growth allowed democracies, welfare systems, and consumer economies to flourish. The danger, Ophuls argued, is that we have come to assume this abundance is permanent.

He often compared modern civilisation to an heir living off an inheritance. For a while everything looks prosperous, but the heir is quietly spending the capital rather than living from the interest. Fossil fuels, fertile soils, forests, fisheries, and biodiversity are forms of natural wealth accumulated over immense periods of time. Industrial civilisation has treated them as though they were inexhaustible.

This is why Ophuls famously replied to critics who claimed ecology could not explain everything:

“Ecology can't be everything? Well, it is everything.”

For him, ecology is not one issue among many. It is the foundation upon which all human societies ultimately depend.

Success Becomes a Trap

Unlike many environmental thinkers, Ophuls does not believe civilisation is threatened because it failed. He believes it is threatened because it succeeded.

Human beings became remarkably good at extracting resources, producing wealth, and expanding their influence over nature. Yet every success brought new dependencies. Larger populations required more energy. Greater prosperity demanded more resources. More complex societies became harder to maintain.

In this respect, Ophuls shares common ground with William Catton, author of Overshoot. Both argued that growth can become a trap. A civilisation expands beyond what its environment can sustainably support, and the very achievements that made it successful become sources of vulnerability.

History offers many examples. Societies rise, grow wealthy, become more complex, and eventually discover that the costs of maintaining that complexity exceed the benefits. Ophuls believed modern industrial civilisation is unlikely to be exempt from this pattern.

Politics in an Age of Limits

What makes Ophuls distinctive is his focus on politics. His concern was not merely that ecological limits exist, but that modern political systems are poorly equipped to deal with them.

Democracies work best in times of expansion. Politicians win support by promising prosperity and growth. Difficult conversations about limits, restraint, or sacrifice are far less popular. As long as the economic pie keeps growing, compromises are relatively easy. When growth slows, politics becomes a struggle over who bears the costs.

This argument remains controversial. Critics point out that democracies have repeatedly adapted to major challenges and that technological innovation has often solved problems once considered insurmountable. Ophuls never denied that technology can solve particular problems. He simply doubted that technology could remove the underlying reality that humanity lives within ecological boundaries.

For him, the challenge is not primarily technical. It is cultural and political.

Hubris and the Future

At the heart of Ophuls' work lies an ancient Greek concept: hubris, the overconfidence that blinds people to reality. In Greek tragedy, heroes often fall because success convinces them that ordinary limits no longer apply.

Ophuls believed modern civilisation suffers from a similar illusion. Technological achievements have encouraged the belief that humanity can overcome any obstacle. Yet ecological limits are not opinions. They are realities.

Whether one agrees with Ophuls or not, he asks questions that are becoming harder to ignore. Can a civilisation built on growth adapt to a world of limits? Can democratic societies make difficult long-term choices before crises force them to act?

His answers are not comforting. But they are worth considering. More than fifty years after he first raised these concerns, the debate he helped start remains far from over.

Further Reading

• The Limits to Growth (1972) — Donella Meadows, Dennis Meadows, Jørgen Randers and William Behrens III.

• Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity (1977) — William Ophuls.

• Immoderate Greatness: Why Civilizations Fail (2012) — William Ophuls.

• Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change (1980) — William R. Catton Jr.

• The End of Growth (2011) — Richard Heinberg.

• Silent Spring (1962) — Rachel Carson.

The Women Who Ruled Behind the Walls of Las Huelgas

Just imagine — Nuns at the Monasterio de Santa María la Real de Las Huelgas in Burgos (Spain). — Nuns added with AI.

Just outside Burgos stands Monasterio de Santa María la Real de Las Huelgas, one of the most extraordinary monasteries in medieval Europe. At first glance it looks like a place of silence: stone cloisters, royal tombs, dim chapels and the slow echo of footsteps beneath ancient vaults.

But for centuries, powerful women ruled from behind these walls.

Not symbolically. Not quietly. They governed land, appointed priests, collected taxes, oversaw villages and exercised authority that in many places belonged only to bishops and noblemen.

And they did so in the heart of medieval Castile.

The Chapter House of Monasterio de Santa María la Real de Las Huelgas, where generations of abbesses governed one of medieval Europe’s most powerful female monasteries (Burgos, Spain).

A Royal Monastery

Las Huelgas was founded in 1187 by Alfonso VIII van Castilië and his English queen, Eleonora van Engeland, daughter of Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine.

This was never meant to be an ordinary convent.

The monastery became a spiritual centre of the Castilian monarchy, a royal burial place and a stage for ceremonies linked to the crown itself. Kings visited. Nobles sent daughters there. Royal banners hung above tombs. Some Castilian princes were even knighted within its walls.

But over time something unusual happened.

The abbesses of Las Huelgas gained powers rarely granted to women in medieval Europe.

Papal documents confirmed their authority over priests, churches and surrounding territories. Villages answered to the monastery. Local clergy could fall under the abbess’s jurisdiction. Legal disputes from the Middle Ages reveal bishops complaining about how much independence Las Huelgas possessed.

The documents are surprisingly direct. They do not describe the abbesses as symbolic figures. They describe administrators, rulers and authorities.

In effect, the abbess governed a small ecclesiastical state.

The Sound of Hooves in the Morning Mist

To understand Las Huelgas, it helps to imagine arrival.

A rider approaches through the cold Castilian morning. Beyond the walls rise towers and church roofs. Bells sound across the fields. Servants move through courtyards carrying baskets and candles. Royal officials arrive with sealed documents. Priests wait for decisions. Noble families negotiate dowries and privileges.

And at the centre of it all stands the abbess in the white habit of the Cistercian order.

Inside the chapter house, documents are read aloud. Wax seals are pressed into parchment. Disputes over land and taxation are settled. Messengers come and go from Burgos and the royal court.

This was not the world most people imagine when they think of medieval nuns.

Las Huelgas was deeply religious, but it was also political, aristocratic and wealthy. Many abbesses came from powerful noble families and were highly educated by the standards of their age. Some were closely connected to the royal dynasty itself.

Their authority was not hidden behind the scenes. It was recognized openly by kings and popes.

The Gospel-side aisle of Monasterio de Santa María la Real de Las Huelgas, traditionally known as the Chapel of Saint Catherine (Burgos, Spain).

Silk, Stone and Royal Graves

One of the most haunting parts of Las Huelgas lies beneath the floors of the monastery church.

Generations of Castilian royalty were buried there, many in remarkably preserved clothing. Because several tombs remained largely undisturbed for centuries, historians discovered some of the finest surviving medieval textiles in Europe.

Silks from Islamic workshops. Embroidered fabrics. Heraldic patterns. Rich colours that once surrounded the royal court of Castile.

These objects reveal another side of Las Huelgas: this monastery stood at the crossroads of worlds.

Christian Castile fought wars against Muslim states in Iberia, yet luxury fabrics from Islamic Spain found their way into royal burials at Las Huelgas. English royal blood flowed into the Castilian dynasty through Queen Eleanor. Pilgrims, merchants and clerics passed through nearby Burgos on routes linked to the Camino de Santiago.

The monastery absorbed all of it.

Even today, walking through Las Huelgas feels less like entering a convent than stepping into the shadow of a forgotten court.

The Long Decline of an Unusual Power

Over time, the independence of Las Huelgas began to trouble church authorities.

From the late Middle Ages onward, bishops and reformers increasingly challenged the abbesses’ powers. Rome grew less comfortable with women exercising quasi-episcopal authority. Gradually, privileges were reduced or absorbed into more conventional church structures.

The world that had allowed such extraordinary female authority slowly disappeared.

Yet Las Huelgas remains one of the most fascinating reminders that medieval Europe was more complex than modern stereotypes suggest.

Behind monastery walls in Castile, women once governed land, negotiated with kings and exercised powers that much of Europe believed belonged only to men.

And remarkably, they left enough documents behind for us to still hear their voices in the silence of the cloisters.

A Vessel of Prestige: The Alabaster Vase of Cancho Roano

Alabaster vessel from Cancho Roano (7th–6th century BC), once a luxury object that travelled from the eastern Mediterranean to Iberia; today on display in the Archaeological Museum of Badajoz.

At first glance, it seems simple: a tall, pale vessel, softly translucent. But this alabaster vase from Cancho Roano carries a story that stretches from ancient Egypt to the far west of Iberia.

From Egypt to Iberia

In Egypt, alabaster vessels were luxury objects, used by elites to store precious oils and perfumes. They often moved as gifts within high-status networks rather than through ordinary trade. When such vessels appear in Iberia in the 7th century BC, they arrive with that same prestige. As José Luis López Castro shows, they are best understood as symbols of status, not everyday goods .

The vase from Cancho Roano is therefore more than an import. It is an object with a past — one that has travelled, been exchanged, and gained meaning along the way.

A Second Life

In Iberia, these vessels often took on a new role. Instead of holding perfume, they were used in funerary contexts, sometimes as containers for cremated remains. Their value now lay not just in their origin, but in what they signified: connection, prestige, and memory.

At a site like Cancho Roano — a place where ritual and elite power came together — such objects were part of a carefully shaped world .

More than an object

What you see in the Archaeological Museum of Badajoz is not just a vessel. It is a trace of a wider network linking Egypt, Phoenician settlers, and Iberian elites — a world in which even a single object could carry the weight of status and identity.

The Procession and the Bronk of Eijsden (2026, The Netherlands)

One of the Oldest Living Traditions of the Meuse Valley

A photo essay from Eijsden, Limburg, The Netherlands

A slideshow of black-and-white photographs from the procession of the Bronk of Eijsden of 2026.

On Sunday morning, 7 June 2026, we visited the village of Eijsden, one of the southernmost villages in The Netherlands, located on the banks of the River Meuse, close to the Belgian border. We had come to see the famous Bronk, one of the oldest and most remarkable religious and cultural traditions in the country.

Unfortunately, we only had time for the morning part of the celebrations. We missed the afternoon procession, the Monday festivities, and the Tuesday events. After what we experienced, however, there is little doubt that we will return. Perhaps in 2027.

At first sight, the Bronk looks like a religious procession. And indeed, its origin lies in the medieval Feast of Corpus Christi, introduced throughout the Catholic world in the thirteenth century. In Eijsden, however, the Bronk is much more than a church event. It is a village-wide celebration that brings together almost every generation and every part of the community.

Long before the procession begins, the village is already awake. Streets are decorated, temporary altars are erected, flowers are arranged, and families prepare for a day that many residents consider the most important event of the year. The procession itself passes through streets lined with spectators, musicians, children, families, members of local associations, and representatives of traditions that have been passed down for centuries.

What impressed us most was not the religious aspect, important though it remains for many participants. It was the sense of community.

The Bronk is not organised for tourists. It is not a commercial festival. It is not designed to attract large crowds from outside the region. Instead, it is a celebration created by the village for the village itself.

That may sound simple, but in modern Europe it is becoming increasingly rare.

During the procession we saw people who clearly knew each other well. Families participated together. Local music societies marched proudly through the streets. Young people played important roles alongside older generations. Traditions were not presented as museum pieces but as living parts of daily life.

A documentary produced by regional broadcaster L1 (see above) captures this atmosphere beautifully. Young men form the traditional jonkheid groups, local harmonies spend weeks preparing their music, and volunteers create flower carpets and temporary shrines. Many participants describe the Bronk not primarily as a religious obligation but as a tradition they inherited from parents and grandparents and wish to pass on to future generations.

The history behind the celebration reaches back more than seven centuries. The Feast of Corpus Christi was introduced in the Prince-Bishopric of Liège, the historic region to which Eijsden belonged culturally and religiously for many centuries. The feast itself was inspired by the visions of Juliana of Cornillon, a nun from the Liège area. When Pope Urban IV officially established Corpus Christi in 1264, the tradition spread across Europe. In Eijsden, it survived where many similar processions disappeared.

One reason may be that the Bronk evolved into something larger than a procession. It became a celebration of local identity.

The festivities continue after Sunday. On Monday, groups visit various locations in the village, and one of the highlights is the Cramignon, a traditional chain dance found in parts of Dutch and Belgian Limburg. Hundreds of dancers can join hands and move through the streets to melodies that have been played for generations. The Cramignon has been recognised as Intangible Cultural Heritage and remains one of the most distinctive traditions of the Meuse Valley.

We only caught glimpses of this atmosphere. We heard stories about the dances, saw preparations, and sensed the excitement among participants. It left us wanting more.

For travellers interested in local culture, Eijsden offers something increasingly difficult to find. Here, tradition is not performed for visitors. Visitors are simply allowed to witness a community celebrating itself.

And perhaps that is precisely why it feels so authentic.

Practical Information

The centrepiece of the Bronk is the Corpus Christi procession, which today takes place on the Sunday after Corpus Christi, eleven days after Pentecost. Monday is devoted to community celebrations, including the famous Cramignon dances and traditional visits throughout the village. On Tuesday, the Bronk gradually draws to a close with music, dancing, and gatherings that allow neighbours, families, and friends to enjoy one final day together before the village returns to its normal rhythm.

Eijsden is located approximately ten kilometres south of Maastricht and can easily be reached by car, bicycle, or train.

Visitors are welcome to watch the procession and festivities, but it is worth remembering that this is first and foremost a community event. Respectful observation, patience, and a willingness to simply enjoy the atmosphere are rewarded with an experience that feels genuinely local.

If possible, stay for several days. Sunday's procession is impressive, but Monday's celebrations and the famous Cramignon dances are an essential part of the story.

Blue Babies: A Quiet Protest That Refused to Disappear

Blue babies (protesting pensioners) by the Russian artist Gluklya, seen at the Museum van Bommel van Dam in Venlo.

I came across this work in the Museum van Bommel van Dam. It is Blue babies (protesting pensioners) by the Russian artist Gluklya.

At first, it looks like a simple painted piece of cloth showing a group of elderly people. But look a little closer, and the scene becomes stranger: the pensioners are holding soft bundles with small, blue faces—like fragile, improvised “babies.”

In this work, Gluklya turns a real event into something quiet but unsettling. The figures represent pensioners who protested against the closure of a small park in their neighbourhood. It was not a dramatic uprising, just a local action—but it mattered. The park was saved.

The image adds another layer to that story. The blue-faced “babies” suggest vulnerability—cold, neglect, something that needs care. By placing them in the arms of elderly people, the work gently shifts perspective. Those often seen as belonging to the past are here shown as carriers of something that still needs protection.

What begins as a small protest opens into a larger reflection. These figures are not only defending a park; they are claiming their place in society. In many cities, older people are everywhere, yet often overlooked. Here, they insist on being seen.

Once you know this, the cloth reads differently. What first feels fragile becomes deliberate. And the quiet presence of these protesters turns into a form of resistance that is hard to ignore.

The Convent of San Marcos, León (Spain)

The Convent of San Marcos, León.

There are buildings that whisper of faith, and others that shout of power. The Convento de San Marcos in León does both — and with such splendour that even silence seems to echo inside its walls.

Once a humble monastery for pilgrims walking the Camino de Santiago, San Marcos grew over the centuries into a masterpiece of Spanish Plateresque architecture — a kind of Renaissance lacework sculpted in stone. Its long façade stretches across the square like a carved tapestry: saints, shells, medallions, and royal emblems woven into the pale limestone. The detail is dizzying, almost theatrical, as if each stone wanted to prove it could outshine the next.

Behind that beauty, though, lies a history of extremes. In the 12th century, the Order of Santiago built here a refuge for weary travellers heading west toward Compostela. By the 16th century, it had become one of Spain’s grandest religious houses — part convent, part royal lodging, part military symbol of empire. During darker times, the same walls served as a prison; even Francisco Franco’s regime held political detainees here.

Today San Marcos has found peace again. Much of it is now a Parador, one of Spain’s most atmospheric state-run hotels. Guests sleep in former monks’ cells, dine beneath vaulted ceilings, and step out onto the same plaza where pilgrims once arrived mud-splattered and star-eyed.

Stand before it in the morning light and you feel the layers of time unfold: the clang of armour, the murmur of prayers, the shuffle of travellers. Few places in Spain condense so much history into one façade.

San Marcos isn’t just a monument — it’s a reminder that beauty and power, faith and suffering, can share the same stones.

The interior of the church of San Marcos in León.

The Parable of the Tribes

Image created with AI.

In 1984, Andrew Bard Schmookler published a remarkable book called The Parable of the Tribes. It explores a simple but important question: if most people prefer peace, why has so much of human history been shaped by war, conquest, and competition?

Schmookler begins with a thought experiment. Imagine several tribes living near one another. If all choose peace, they can coexist peacefully. But what happens if just one tribe decides to expand its territory and dominate its neighbours?

The other tribes face a difficult choice. They can be conquered, flee, submit, or prepare to defend themselves. Yet successful defence often requires them to become more organised, more militarised, and more focused on power. In trying to resist the aggressor, they begin to resemble it.

This is the central insight of the book. Power does not spread because everyone wants it. It spreads because those who refuse to compete with powerful rivals are often overwhelmed by those who do.

For Schmookler, this is more than an explanation for war. It is a theory of history. He argues that once societies began competing with one another, a process of selection took hold. Societies that became better at organising power were more likely to survive, expand, and leave their mark on the future. Over centuries, this helped shape kingdoms, empires, armies, bureaucracies, and many of the institutions we associate with civilisation.

Viewed in this way, history is not simply a story of ambitious rulers and military victories. It is also a story of systems. Even communities that preferred a peaceful path could find themselves drawn into the struggle because their neighbours were playing by different rules.

Schmookler does not argue that human beings are naturally violent. Rather, he suggests that the circumstances in which societies find themselves can be as important as their intentions. A society may choose peace, but it cannot choose peace on behalf of its neighbours.

The book remains controversial. Critics point out that human history has been shaped not only by competition but also by trade, cooperation, religion, migration, and cultural exchange. Others question whether early hunter-gatherer societies were as peaceful and egalitarian as Schmookler suggests. Civilisation, they argue, cannot be explained by the pursuit of power alone.

Yet even those who disagree with some of his conclusions often acknowledge the strength of the question he raises. What happens when a single society chooses expansion in a world where its neighbours would rather live in peace? Schmookler's answer is that the consequences spread far beyond the original aggressor, shaping the entire system around it.

More than forty years after its publication, The Parable of the Tribes remains a fascinating lens through which to view the past. Whether one accepts its conclusions or not, it encourages us to look beyond individual leaders and battles and to ask a deeper question: how much of human history has been shaped not by what people wanted, but by the situations they could not avoid?

Valuas and Guntrud: How Venlo Invented Its Own Origins

Statue of Valuas and Guntrud in Venlo — a legendary founding couple not from ancient history, but from an 18th-century reinvention that turned procession giants into symbols of the city’s identity.

Walk through Venlo and you may come across a striking pair: a proud warrior and a composed woman, often presented as the city’s founding couple. Their names are Valuas and Guntrud. They look as if they belong to the distant world of tribal Europe and Roman frontiers. But their story tells us less about ancient history—and more about how communities shape their own past.

A Founding on the River

According to the legend, Valuas was a leader of the Germanic Bructeri. Defeated somewhere east of the Rhine, he fled with his followers around 96 AD, moving west until they reached the river Maas. At a bend in the river, they decided to settle.

Guntrud, presented as his wife, stands beside him in the story as they choose this place—a moment that turns retreat into a beginning. In this version, Venlo is not the result of gradual growth, but of a single, decisive act.

It is a story that fits neatly into the larger narrative of early Europe, at the shifting edge of the Roman world.

A Legend from the 1700s

But the story itself is much younger than it claims. It was only written down in the mid-18th century (around 1754).

That timing matters. Across the Low Countries, religious processions once featured large figures—giants representing biblical characters. In Venlo, one of these was the giant Goliath and his companion.

As attitudes changed under the influence of the Counter-Reformation, such figures became controversial and were sometimes restricted. Communities had to adapt if they wanted their traditions to survive.

In Venlo, those figures were gradually reinterpreted. Goliath was transformed into Valuas, a heroic founder. His companion became Guntrud—though her name was introduced only later, reportedly through a local initiative or contest. What had once been part of a religious spectacle became a story about origins.

From Giants to Citizens

Over time, the transformation deepened. The figures moved from processions into storytelling, and from storytelling into the physical landscape of the city. Today, statues of Valuas and Guntrud stand in Venlo, and their names echo in local traditions.

What began as an adaptation became identity.

This is what makes the story so interesting. It shows how traditions are not simply handed down unchanged. They are reshaped—sometimes deliberately—to fit new circumstances. In doing so, they gain a different kind of authenticity: not historical, but cultural.

A City That Chose Its Past

Valuas and Guntrud may not be historical figures, but they are not meaningless inventions either. They are the result of a conscious choice: to preserve a tradition by giving it a new form.

In that sense, the story of Venlo is not about a tribal leader fleeing across Europe. It is about a community, centuries later, deciding what it wanted to remember—and how.

And that may be the more enduring kind of history.

When the Mediterranean Became a Connected World

Image generated with AI

Around 500 BC, the Mediterranean was no longer just a sea surrounded by separate cultures. It had become something new: a vast, interconnected world. Merchants, sailors, migrants, and travelers moved constantly between its shores. Wine from Italy could be drunk in Gaul. Silver mined in Iberia might be turned into coins in the eastern Mediterranean. Pottery made in Corinth could appear in villages far away in southern France. Goods traveled widely—and so did ideas, religions, technologies, and languages.

In many ways, the Mediterranean around 500 BC functioned like an ancient version of globalization.

From Collapse to Opportunity

This interconnected world emerged slowly from the dramatic changes that followed the collapse of the Bronze Age around 1200 BC. Before that collapse, long-distance trade existed but was largely organized through powerful palace states such as Mycenaean Greece, the Hittite Empire, and Egypt. These political systems controlled the movement of luxury goods and essential metals such as copper and tin. When those palace networks disappeared, much of that system collapsed with them. For a time, the Mediterranean fragmented into smaller regional worlds. Yet the disappearance of centralized control also created new opportunities. Independent merchants and sailors began exploring new routes and markets. Over the following centuries a different type of economic system developed—less centralized, more entrepreneurial, and spread across far greater distances. By around 500 BC, these networks linked the entire Mediterranean, from the Levant in the east to the Atlantic shores of Iberia.

The Sea as a Highway

The geography of the Mediterranean made these connections possible. Although we often think of seas as barriers, in antiquity the Mediterranean functioned more like a highway. Travel by ship was frequently faster and easier than travel over land, where mountains, forests, and poor roads slowed movement dramatically. The Mediterranean coastline is also extremely diverse. Fertile plains, forested mountains, mineral-rich hills, and dry uplands lie close together. Each region produced different resources. Some areas had grain but lacked timber. Others had metals but needed food. Trade connected these micro-regions. Grain, metals, wine, olive oil, pottery, and textiles moved constantly between ports carried in large ceramic storage jars aboard merchant ships.

Sailors, Merchants, and Migrants

Two groups of seafarers were especially visible in this expanding world: the Phoenicians and the Greeks.

Phoenician merchants from small city-states along the Levantine coast—such as Tyre and Sidon—sailed westward for centuries. They founded trading settlements across the Mediterranean, including famous cities such as Carthage in North Africa.

Greek communities were also establishing new cities overseas, particularly in Sicily, southern Italy, Anatolia, and southern France. Over time many of these settlements became powerful cities in their own right rather than simple outposts of their homeland.

Yet the Mediterranean was never simply divided between Greeks and Phoenicians. Everywhere these travelers arrived they encountered other societies—Etruscans, Iberians, Libyans, Gauls, and many others. Trade, migration, and daily contact created new hybrid cultures that blended traditions from multiple worlds.

A Cosmopolitan Sea

The sailors who crossed the Mediterranean often lived in remarkably cosmopolitan environments. A single merchant ship might carry crew members from Tyre, Cyprus, Sicily, Egypt, and the Greek islands. Many spoke several languages and traded goods on their own account wherever they landed. Ports became meeting points of cultures. Markets brought together traders from distant regions. Foreign merchants settled permanently in cities. Religious cults, alphabets, and artistic styles spread along the same routes as trade goods.

By 500 BC, many cultural practices—such as drinking wine, using coinage, and writing with alphabetic scripts—had spread widely around the Mediterranean.

The Foundations of the Classical World

This interconnected system formed the foundation for the centuries that followed. The rise of Classical Greece, the growing power of Carthage, and the emergence of the Roman Republic all unfolded within this already connected Mediterranean world. Rome did not create a unified Mediterranean. It inherited one.

By around 500 BC the sea that separated continents had become the sea that connected them.

Further Reading

• Tamar Hodos — The Archaeology of the Mediterranean Iron Age: A Globalizing World (1100–600 BCE)

• Nicholas Purcell & Peregrine Horden — The Corrupting Sea

• Cyprian Broodbank — The Making of the Middle Sea

• Josephine Quinn — In Search of the Phoenicians

• Patrick Wyman — Tides of History (podcast series on the Iron Age Mediterranean)

After Gaza: Europe’s Uncomfortable Moral Dilemma

Pankaj Mishra’s The World After Gaza is not simply a book about the war in Gaza. Nor is it a traditional political history of Israel and Palestine. It is a broader reflection on violence, memory, colonialism, and the moral authority of the modern West.

What makes the book unusual is its point of view. Pankaj Mishra writes not as a European or an American, but as an Indian intellectual shaped by the history of colonialism and by the experience of living outside the Western world. That perspective matters. The book is, in many ways, an attempt to describe how the events in Gaza are seen across large parts of Asia, Africa and the Middle East — regions where European history is remembered not only through the Holocaust and democracy, but also through empire, racial hierarchy and colonial violence.

For Mishra, Gaza has become a moment in which these different historical memories collide.

In Europe, the Holocaust remains the central moral reference point of modern history. The promise of “never again” shaped Europe’s postwar identity and strongly influenced its relationship with Israel. But Mishra argues that many people outside the West increasingly see a contradiction between Europe’s universal language of human rights and its reactions to Palestinian suffering.

Whether one agrees with him or not, this is the uncomfortable core of the book.

Mishra moves through a wide landscape of ideas and history: anti-Semitism, Zionism, European imperialism, postcolonial thought, nationalism, and the long shadow of twentieth-century violence. He does not deny Jewish suffering or the horrors of the Holocaust. But he questions whether Europe’s historical guilt has, at times, made open discussion about Israel and Palestine more difficult.

That argument places European readers in a difficult position.

Can Europeans defend both Israel’s security and universal human rights without appearing selective? Can criticism of Israeli policy remain separate from anti-Semitism? And how should Europe respond when much of the non-Western world increasingly interprets Gaza through the language of colonialism and inequality rather than through Europe’s postwar moral framework?

The book does not offer easy answers. In fact, part of its power lies in its refusal to comfort the reader. Mishra deliberately challenges assumptions that many Europeans have long taken for granted about morality, historical responsibility and the role of the West in the world.

Critics of the book argue that Mishra oversimplifies Israeli fears and reduces a highly complex conflict to a colonial narrative. Admirers see the book as an important attempt to explain why Western reactions to Gaza have damaged the credibility of Europe and the United States in many parts of the world.

Both reactions reveal something important: The World After Gaza is not mainly a book about diplomacy or military strategy. It is a book about legitimacy — about who has the moral authority to speak in the name of humanity, justice and universal values.

For European readers, that may be the most unsettling aspect of all.

The book quietly raises a larger question: what happens if the rest of the world no longer sees Europe as the moral centre of global politics, but as one historical power among many — carrying both the achievements and the burdens of its past?

Mishra does not celebrate that shift, nor does he fully explain where it may lead. But he argues that Gaza has accelerated it.

That makes The World After Gaza an uncomfortable but important book: not because it tells Europeans what to think, but because it forces them to see themselves through the eyes of others.

Further reading

• The Age of Anger — Pankaj Mishra

• From the Ruins of Empire — Pankaj Mishra

• Orientalism — Edward Said

• Enemies and Neighbours — Ian Black

Overshoot: Rereading William Catton in 2026

William R. Catton Jr. (1926–2015), whose was one of the first exploring the ecological limits of human expansion in his book Overshoot (1980).

Few books become more relevant with age. Most are products of their time, shaped by the concerns and assumptions of the era in which they were written. William Catton's Overshoot, first published in 1980, seems to have followed a different path. For decades it remained largely unknown outside environmental circles. Today, however, it reads less like a historical document and more like a guide to some of the questions that increasingly dominate public debate.

Catton was a sociologist, but he approached society with the eyes of an ecologist. While most discussions about the future focused on economics, politics, or technology, he asked a simpler question: what happens when a species grows beyond the long-term capacity of its environment? Ecologists had long applied this idea to deer, fish, insects, or bacteria. Catton argued that humans should not assume they are exempt.

More than forty years later, the question feels surprisingly contemporary.

An Age of Abundance

The key to Catton's argument was energy. For most of human history, people lived on the annual income provided by nature: crops, forests, animal power, wind, and water. The amount of energy available each year was limited by what the Earth could produce during that year.

The industrial age changed that.

Coal, oil, and natural gas gave humanity access to enormous stores of energy accumulated over millions of years. Catton described these resources as a kind of inheritance: wealth stored by nature long before humans arrived. Combined with technological innovation, they transformed agriculture, transportation, industry, and medicine. Populations expanded. Cities grew. Standards of living rose. Economic growth became so familiar that many people came to regard it as the normal state of affairs.

The scale of this transformation is difficult to overstate. A modern farmer using machinery and synthetic fertilizers can produce food for hundreds of people. Goods can be transported across continents within days. Vast cities can exist in deserts because fossil fuels allow water to be pumped, treated, and distributed. Industrial civilization became possible because humanity gained access to a temporary windfall of concentrated energy.

The problem, Catton argued, was not the windfall itself. The problem was what happened next.

Living on Inheritance

Imagine a family that spends its savings as if it were income.

At first, everything appears to be going well. The house improves, the meals become richer, and life feels more prosperous every year. Looking around, it seems obvious that the family has discovered a successful formula.

Only later does an uncomfortable reality emerge. The money being spent is not income. It is capital. Once it is gone, it is gone.

Catton believed industrial civilization had made a similar mistake.

The graph accompanying this article illustrates the idea. The upper dashed line represents what Catton called phantom carrying capacity: a temporary increase in the Earth's ability to support human populations and consumption, created by fossil fuels, technology, and the exploitation of accumulated natural wealth.

The lower line represents long-term carrying capacity: what the Earth can support indefinitely without drawing down its natural capital.

For a time, the two seem almost indistinguishable. The temporary abundance provided by fossil fuels makes extraordinary growth possible. Humanity expands into a space that appears sustainable because the underlying resources are still plentiful.

But appearances can be deceiving.

Catton's overshoot model: fossil fuels and other forms of natural capital temporarily expand carrying capacity, enabling rapid growth. But as that inheritance is consumed, both prosperity and the Earth's ability to support it come under pressure.

The Overshoot Phase

The red curve in the graph represents human demand on ecosystems.

As long as demand remains below carrying capacity, growth can continue without fundamentally damaging the resource base. Problems arise when demand exceeds what the Earth can renew and absorb.

This is the point Catton called overshoot.

Most environmental debates focus on individual symptoms: climate change, biodiversity loss, groundwater depletion, soil erosion, declining fisheries, or pollution. Catton encouraged readers to see these not as separate crises but as different expressions of the same underlying process.

During overshoot, society begins drawing down natural capital.

Forests are harvested faster than they regrow. Aquifers are depleted faster than they refill. Fertile soils erode. Fisheries decline. Fossil fuels are burned. The inheritance is converted into current prosperity.

For a while, this may even accelerate growth. The easiest and richest resources are usually exploited first. Living standards rise. Economic indicators improve. Success reinforces the belief that growth can continue indefinitely.

Yet the apparent prosperity contains a hidden contradiction. The more completely society succeeds in converting natural capital into economic activity, the more it reduces the foundations on which future prosperity depends.

The shaded area beneath the peak of the curve represents this drawdown of natural capital.

It is the heart of Catton's argument.

When the Limits Move

One of the most interesting features of the graph is that neither carrying-capacity line remains fixed.

The temporary carrying capacity created by fossil fuels and technology eventually begins to decline. The richest resources are depleted first. Remaining reserves become harder and more expensive to extract. More energy and effort are required simply to maintain existing systems.

But the lower line also changes.

For much of the growth phase, the Earth's long-term carrying capacity remains relatively stable. Then, as overshoot continues, it begins to decline as well. Degraded soils produce less food. Damaged ecosystems become less resilient. Biodiversity shrinks. Freshwater resources become more difficult to access.

The result is a troubling feedback loop. Humanity is not only exhausting a temporary bonus; it may also be reducing the productive capacity that would remain after the bonus is gone.

This distinction is crucial. Overshoot does not merely consume resources. It can alter the conditions under which future generations must live.

In ecological terms, the carrying capacity itself becomes a moving target.

Adjustment

No species can indefinitely consume resources faster than they are renewed.

Eventually reality reasserts itself.

Catton referred to this stage as adjustment. He was cautious about predicting exactly how it would occur. Different societies may respond in different ways. Technological innovation can delay certain limits. Cultural adaptation can reduce pressure on resources. Demographic change may alter patterns of demand.

Yet none of these possibilities eliminate the underlying ecological principle.

If demand exceeds carrying capacity long enough, some form of correction becomes unavoidable.

The shape of that correction is impossible to know in advance. History offers examples ranging from gradual decline to sudden collapse. Catton's concern was not to predict a specific future but to highlight a pattern that had appeared repeatedly in both human and natural systems.

Growth beyond limits eventually encounters consequences.

Income and Capital

What makes Overshoot such a remarkable book is that it shifts the discussion away from politics and ideology and toward a more fundamental question.

Are we living from income, or are we living from capital?

The distinction sounds technical, but it reaches into almost every contemporary debate. Climate change, biodiversity loss, declining fisheries, groundwater depletion, soil degradation, and resource scarcity can all be viewed through this lens.

A society living from income relies on flows that can be renewed year after year. A society living from capital consumes stocks that accumulated over long periods of time.

Catton's warning was not that humanity would inevitably collapse. It was that industrial civilization had become so accustomed to living from accumulated capital that many people no longer recognized the difference.

The graph is therefore not a prophecy. It is a reminder.

Temporary abundance can be mistaken for permanent wealth. Growth can disguise depletion. Prosperity can conceal dependence on resources that are quietly disappearing beneath the surface.

More than four decades after its publication, Overshoot remains compelling because it invites readers to look beyond immediate events and ask a deeper question: not how much wealth we are creating today, but what we are spending in order to create it.

That question may be even more relevant now than it was in 1980.

Further Reading

• William R. Catton Jr., Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change (1980)

• William R. Catton Jr., Bottleneck: Humanity's Impending Impasse (2009)

A Folding Tripod from the Riotinto Region

A Roman folding bronze tripod (1st–2nd century AD) from the Riotinto mining region, now in the Museo de Huelva. Used to support a bowl, brazier or oil lamp, it may also have served to bring light into the mine galleries — though this remains uncertain.

At first glance, it is easy to overlook: three slender legs, ending in small human feet, forming a simple stand. But this object — now in the Museo de Huelva — comes from the Roman mining region of Riotinto, one of the industrial heartlands of the ancient world.

Tripods like this were used to support everyday items: a bowl, a brazier, or an oil lamp. Their purpose was simple — to lift something off the ground, to make it usable. Yet this example adds an unexpected layer. It is foldable. The legs can be collapsed, making it portable. That alone is striking. We tend to imagine ancient tools as solid and heavy, not designed to move easily. And yet here is a Roman object that folds, built for mobility.

Its exact use is less certain. It may have stood in a domestic space, holding a small fire or a vessel. In the specific context of Riotinto, another possibility emerges. In the mine galleries themselves, no fixed lighting installations have been found, and some researchers suggest that lamps may have been placed on stands like this to bring light into the underground spaces. It is a compelling idea — though not something we can prove.

What we can say is that this object belongs to a world that was both highly practical and carefully designed. Even here, in a landscape defined by extraction and labour, attention was given to form. The small human feet at the base of each leg serve no strict function, yet they change how the object is perceived. It does not just stand — it almost stands like something.

Seen on its own, the tripod is modest. But placed in context, it speaks of movement, adaptability and daily life. It reminds us that even in one of the largest mining complexes of the Roman Empire, life depended on small, well-designed tools — objects that could be carried, adjusted, and put to use wherever they were needed.

A Bowl Made of a Thousand Pieces

A Roman Millefiori Glass Bowl in Southern Spain

A Roman millefiori glass bowl (1st century AD), found in Medina Sidonia and now ond display in the Museo Arqueológico de Medina Sidonia (MAMS) in Medina Sidonia.

At first glance, it looks almost improvised — a shallow bowl, broken and reassembled, its surface covered in small circular patterns. It could easily be mistaken for something simple, even local. It is neither.

This is a Roman millefiori glass bowl, made in the 1st century AD, now in the Museo Arqueológico de Medina Sidonia. What appears fragmented and irregular is in fact the result of a remarkably sophisticated technique. The name millefiori, meaning “a thousand flowers,” refers to the way it was made: glassmakers created rods of coloured glass, built up in layers, then sliced them into thin sections. Each slice revealed a tiny pattern — often resembling a flower or an eye — and these were carefully arranged and fused together to form the surface of the bowl.

The effect looks almost accidental, but it is anything but. Every pattern was planned, every piece placed with intention. This was high-level craftsmanship, requiring both control and experience. It also belonged to a wider world. Bowls like this were not made everywhere, but in specialised workshops, most likely in the eastern Mediterranean, before travelling across the networks of the Roman Empire.

The fact that such an object ended up in southern Spain is not surprising, but it is revealing. It shows how connected that world had become. Fragile, decorative objects could move across long distances, carried along the same routes as metals, wine, oil and people.

What makes this bowl particularly compelling is the contrast between what it seems and what it is. It looks like a patchwork of fragments, but it is the result of precision. It feels local, but it is part of a much larger system. Like so many objects in museums, it only begins to make sense once you look beyond the surface.

Yanis Varoufakis on America and the New Global Shift

Based on: “America Is Heading Towards Collapse!” (YouTube)

Yanis Varoufakis is a Greek economist, author, and former finance minister of Greece, known internationally for his outspoken criticism of austerity policies, global financial inequality, and the concentration of power within modern capitalism. Since the eurozone crisis, he has become one of Europe’s most recognizable public intellectuals on economics, democracy, and the future of the global order. (Image created with AI.)

In a recent interview, Greek economist and former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis argued that the world may be witnessing the gradual weakening of American global dominance.

His central claim is simple: by relying increasingly on sanctions, military pressure, and financial control through the dollar system, the United States is encouraging other countries to build alternatives.

The World Begins Looking Beyond the Dollar

Varoufakis points to a major turning point after the freezing of Russian state assets following the invasion of Ukraine. Many governments suddenly realized that access to their own reserves could become politically conditional.

According to him, countries across Asia, the Gulf, and Africa are now quietly diversifying away from the dollar. China’s digital payment systems and the emerging BRICS Pay network are, in his view, the first foundations of a parallel global financial system.

He does not believe the dollar will collapse soon. In fact, China itself still depends heavily on dollar stability. But he argues that the long-term shift has already started.

A Tale of Two Economies

One of Varoufakis’ most striking observations is the growing disconnect between financial markets and everyday life.

While ordinary people struggle with rising costs for food, housing, and energy, stock markets and AI companies continue booming. In his analysis, modern capitalism increasingly rewards financial speculation while much of the middle and working class loses purchasing power.

He describes Western democracies less as true democracies and more as oligarchic systems dominated by wealthy interests. Whether one agrees or not, the frustration he describes is increasingly visible across Europe and America.

Europe’s Uneasy Position

Varoufakis is especially critical of Europe.

He argues that after the 2008 financial crisis, European leaders combined austerity for citizens with large-scale support for banks and financial markets. The result, he says, was a weakened industrial base and growing dependence on the United States.

Recent years have exposed some uncomfortable truths. Europe remains vulnerable to energy shocks, dependent on American military protection, and economically squeezed between the United States and a rapidly rising China.

Meanwhile, China continues expanding its strength in electric vehicles, batteries, solar energy, and digital infrastructure.

The Return of a Multipolar World

For three decades after the Cold War, much of the world operated under the assumption that American economic and geopolitical leadership was permanent. Varoufakis believes that assumption is now fading.

Countries are increasingly trying to reduce their dependence on a single global center of power. Some are diversifying trade routes. Others are investing in alternative payment systems, energy partnerships, or regional alliances. The rise of BRICS reflects this wider search for balance and autonomy.

At the same time, the West faces growing internal strains: rising inequality, political polarization, industrial decline, and declining trust in institutions. For many citizens, the promises of globalization no longer feel convincing.

Varoufakis does not predict an immediate collapse of the United States. Rather, he describes the beginning of a long transition toward a more fragmented and competitive world order — one in which economic power, technological innovation, and political influence are distributed across several competing centers rather than concentrated in Washington alone.

History offers many examples of such transitions. Great powers rarely disappear overnight. More often, influence slowly erodes while new systems emerge alongside the old.

Varoufakis believes we may already be living through one of those moments.

Further Reading

• Technofeudalism — Yanis Varoufakis (2023)

• The Global Minotaur — Yanis Varoufakis (2011)

• The World for Sale — Javier Blas & Jack Farchy (2021)

Marion Koopmans Before Parliament on COVID-19

Why Do So Many Virologists Favour Spillover?

Marion Koopmans, Dutch virologist and member of the WHO team that investigated the origins of COVID-19 in Wuhan. (Image created with AI)

When Marion Koopmans appeared before the Dutch parliamentary inquiry into COVID-19, the committee questioned one of the most influential scientific advisers of the pandemic. Much of the hearing focused on the chaotic first weeks of 2020, the uncertainty surrounding a new virus, and the challenge of advising governments when critical information was still missing. Listening to her testimony, one is reminded how little was known at the time and how many decisions had to be made before the facts were fully understood.

The discussion eventually turned to the origins of COVID-19. Koopmans repeated a position she has held for years: that a natural spillover from animals to humans remains the most likely explanation, even if certainty remains elusive. She also observed that within the scientific community that studies emerging infectious diseases, a large majority of researchers continue to regard COVID-19 as one of many examples of a virus crossing from animals into humans. At the same time, she suggested that the tendency to treat spillover and laboratory leak as equally plausible explanations emerged largely outside that scientific community.

The committee largely moved on.

Yet that brief exchange should have opened an entirely new line of questioning.

If most virologists continue to favour spillover, while many politicians, intelligence agencies and members of the public remain unconvinced, then understanding that difference becomes important. Why do these groups look at the same uncertainty and arrive at different conclusions? What assumptions guide their thinking? What evidence do they weigh differently?

Instead, the discussion quickly returned to more familiar ground.

That feels like a missed opportunity.

After all, Marion Koopmans was not invited merely because she had read the relevant reports. Parliament could have read those reports itself. She was invited because she possesses something much more valuable: decades of experience inside the international virology community. She knows how that community thinks about emerging diseases. She understands how it assesses risk. She has spent years participating in debates about dangerous pathogens, laboratory safety and pandemic preparedness.

Those are precisely the subjects that Parliament seemed least interested in exploring.

From a virologist's perspective, spillover is hardly an unusual explanation. SARS, MERS, avian influenza and Ebola all crossed from animals into humans. Researchers such as Koopmans have spent much of their professional lives studying precisely these kinds of events. When a new virus emerges, many naturally begin by looking for the next example in a familiar pattern.

Yet COVID-19 emerged under circumstances that many people regard as anything but ordinary.

The outbreak began in Wuhan, a city that had become one of the world's leading centres for coronavirus research. Scientists there were studying bat coronaviruses, collecting virus samples and investigating how such viruses might evolve and infect humans. Questions about laboratory safety had occasionally surfaced before the pandemic. None of these facts prove that COVID-19 originated in a laboratory. But they help explain why the laboratory-leak hypothesis has remained alive long after the pandemic itself.

This is where the hearing begins to raise eyebrows.

One might expect a parliamentary committee to ask how the international virology community viewed those circumstances. How did researchers assess the risks associated with coronavirus research before 2020? How much confidence did they place in laboratory safety systems? Were laboratory accidents regarded as realistic possibilities or as highly unlikely events? How did scientists think about gain-of-function research and other controversial forms of pathogen research?

Most importantly, why did so many virologists continue to place greater weight on spillover than on a laboratory accident?

Those questions were barely explored.

That matters because expertise and independence are not the same thing. After financial crises, societies seek explanations from bankers. After military failures, they question generals. After industrial accidents, they rely on engineers. In every case, insiders possess knowledge that outsiders lack. Yet insiders are also shaped by the assumptions, experiences and culture of their own profession.

The same may be true in virology.

Scientists who have spent decades studying dangerous pathogens understand better than anyone why such research is conducted. They know what has been learned and what future threats it may help prevent. At the same time, if a pandemic were ever linked to the type of research they consider important, the consequences would extend far beyond a single laboratory. Questions would inevitably be asked about research priorities, funding, oversight and scientific culture across the entire field.

That does not mean their conclusions are wrong.

It does mean that their assumptions deserve scrutiny.

Indeed, the more expert the witness, the more important that scrutiny becomes. The purpose of a parliamentary inquiry is not simply to establish what experts think. It is to understand how they arrived at those conclusions and what assumptions underpin them.

That was the opportunity Parliament had before it.

The hearing revealed a great deal about what Marion Koopmans thinks about the origins of COVID-19. It revealed much less about why the wider virology community thinks the way it does.

Six years after the pandemic began, the debate over spillover and laboratory leak remains unresolved. The hearing was never likely to settle it.

But it could have shed light on a different question: how one of the world's leading communities of virus researchers assesses risk, uncertainty and evidence.

Marion Koopmans was one of the few people capable of helping Parliament explore that question.

The committee never really asked her to.

Written after evaluating the public hearing of Marion Koopmans before the Dutch Parliamentary Inquiry Committee on COVID-19, 29 May 2026.

Why Europe’s Past Still Shapes Its Future

Michael Neiberg, historian who studies how Europe’s past continues to shape its present. (Image created with AI.)

Europe often presents itself as a continent focused on the future: open borders, shared institutions, economic cooperation, and democracy replacing centuries of conflict. Yet many of today’s political tensions — from the war in Ukraine to debates about migration and nationalism — are deeply rooted in Europe’s past.

That is the central argument of Michael Neiberg, an American historian at the United States Army War College and one of the leading experts on modern European history. In a recent lecture, Neiberg argued that Europe’s current crises only make sense when viewed through the long historical forces that shaped the continent.

His message is simple but powerful: history does not disappear. It remains visible in borders, political culture, economics, and even voting patterns.

Europe Was Built on the Collapse of Empires

Before the World War I, Europe looked very different from today. Much of the continent was ruled not by nation-states, but by vast empires such as the Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, Russian, and German Empires. These were multi-ethnic worlds where different peoples lived under the same imperial structures.

Then, between 1914 and 1918, all four collapsed.

After the war, European leaders tried to rebuild the continent around the idea of national self-determination: each people should ideally have its own state. But reality was far messier. Populations were mixed together, borders rarely matched identities, and millions suddenly became minorities inside newly created countries.

Neiberg argues that many of Europe’s current divisions still follow these older fault lines. Election maps in places like Poland, Romania, and Germany continue to reflect borders drawn generations ago. Even decades after the end of the Cold War, the old divide between East and West Germany remains visible in politics and economics.

History, in other words, leaves very long shadows.

The Optimism After the Cold War

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, many Europeans believed that history had entered a new phase. Liberal democracy and free markets appeared to have won decisively. Economic integration would make future wars unlikely.

Trade became the new foundation of European thinking.

Germany in particular believed that economic cooperation could transform former rivals into reliable partners. Russian gas would tie Russia to Europe. Trade with China would encourage stability and openness. Military confrontation increasingly seemed like something belonging to the twentieth century.

For a while, this vision appeared successful.

But Neiberg argues that Europe misunderstood its own history. Economic ties alone did not erase geopolitical ambitions or historical grievances. Russia did not become the predictable partner many hoped for. Instead, the invasion of Ukraine shattered much of Europe’s post-Cold War optimism.

The result is a Europe suddenly forced to rethink assumptions that had guided it for decades.

A Continent Rediscovering Hard Power

The war in Ukraine has pushed Europe back into questions many believed had been solved: territorial security, military power, and the possibility of large-scale war on the continent.

Countries such as Poland and the Baltic states warned for years that Russia remained a threat. Their historical experience under Soviet domination shaped a very different understanding of security from that of Western Europe.

Now much of Europe is moving in their direction.

Germany, long reluctant to think of itself as a military power, is rebuilding its armed forces and increasing defense spending. The idea that economic interdependence alone guarantees peace no longer feels convincing.

At the same time, Europeans increasingly wonder how permanent American support will remain. Photographs of European leaders discussing security without the United States — and American officials discussing Europe with Russia without Europeans present — have created unease across the continent.

Once again, history shapes perception. Europe remembers periods when American engagement weakened, and many now fear a return to a more distant and transactional relationship.

Migration and the Legacy of Empire

Neiberg also points to migration as another example of history’s persistence.

Many migrants arriving in Europe come from regions once ruled by European empires in Africa and the Middle East. In countries such as France, these historical connections still influence debates about responsibility, identity, and belonging.

Europe faces a contradiction: many economies need migrant labor, yet large parts of the population remain uneasy about rapid demographic and cultural change.

These debates are not only about economics or borders. They are also about the unfinished legacy of empire.

History Does Not Repeat — But It Persists

Neiberg is careful not to argue that Europe is doomed to repeat the past. History is not destiny. But ignoring history can lead to dangerous illusions.

One of the clearest examples, he argues, was the belief that post-Cold War Europe had moved beyond traditional power politics altogether. The assumption that trade alone would create stability now appears far less certain than it did twenty years ago.

For Neiberg, the challenge is not to become trapped in history, but to understand how deeply it continues to shape the present.

Europe may look modern and post-national on the surface. Yet underneath, the continent still carries the structures, memories, and tensions created by empires, wars, borders, and ideological struggles stretching back more than a century.

The past has not disappeared. Europe is still negotiating with it every day.

Further reading

• Michael Neiberg — Dance of the Furies: Europe and the Outbreak of World War I

• Michael Neiberg — When France Fell: The Vichy Crisis and the Fate of the Anglo-American Alliance

• Timothy Snyder — The Road to Unfreedom

• Mary Sarotte — Not One Inch: America, Russia, and the Making of Post-Cold War Stalemate

AI and the Coming Quantum Revolution

Image created with AI.

For years, quantum computing has sounded like something from science fiction: strange machines using the bizarre laws of quantum physics to solve problems beyond the reach of ordinary computers. Most experts believed practical quantum computers were still decades away.

Now, that assumption is beginning to wobble.

A recent scientific breakthrough suggests that the arrival of powerful quantum computers may come much sooner than expected. Even more striking: artificial intelligence played a major role in making the breakthrough possible.

For most people, quantum computing is hard to imagine. Ordinary computers work with bits that are either a 0 or a 1. Quantum computers use “qubits,” which behave according to the strange rules of quantum physics. In theory, this allows them to process certain kinds of calculations enormously faster than today’s machines.

The problem has always been stability. Quantum systems are fragile. Tiny disturbances can create errors, and researchers long believed that millions of qubits would be needed before truly powerful quantum computers became practical.

The new research changes that picture. Scientists found a method that dramatically reduces the number of qubits needed for error correction. In simple terms: the mountain of problems to solve suddenly became much smaller.

And AI helped them to do it.

Researchers used advanced AI systems to test enormous numbers of possible solutions. The AI combined existing mathematical ideas in unexpected ways and discovered new approaches that human researchers had overlooked. Some scientists involved admitted that without AI, they might simply have given up.

This is one reason the breakthrough has caused such concern in cybersecurity circles.

Much of modern digital security depends on mathematical problems that are extremely difficult for ordinary computers to solve. That is what protects online banking, encrypted messaging, passwords, military secrets, and large parts of the global financial system.

A sufficiently powerful quantum computer could potentially crack many of these protections far faster than current machines. Experts sometimes refer to the moment this becomes possible as “Q-Day.”

Nobody knows exactly when that day will arrive. Some researchers still believe it is many years away. Others now think it could come much sooner than governments and companies expected.

The fear is not only about the future. Intelligence agencies and criminal groups may already be collecting encrypted data today in the hope that future quantum computers will later be able to unlock it.

The story also points to something larger than quantum computing itself.

For decades, scientific progress was often limited by human time and human imagination. AI is beginning to change that. It is no longer just writing essays or generating images. Increasingly, it is helping researchers solve difficult problems in mathematics, chemistry, physics, and medicine.

That raises uncomfortable questions.

Human societies usually adapt slowly. Laws, education systems, political institutions, and public understanding often lag behind technological change. Yet AI may now be accelerating discovery in ways that compress decades of progress into just a few years.

The world has seen moments like this before. The Industrial Revolution transformed economies faster than societies could adapt. Nuclear physics changed global politics almost overnight after the Second World War. The internet reshaped communication and power structures within a single generation.

Quantum computing, combined with AI, may become another such turning point.

And as with earlier technological revolutions, the real challenge may not be building the machines themselves. It may be preparing society for what follows.

From Franco to Freedom: Spain’s quiet reinvention

Left: Francisco Franco lying in state after his death in November 1975. Right: Juan Carlos I in formal portrait shortly after becoming king. (Image created with AI.)

Spain’s transition to democracy is often told as a moment of rupture: dictatorship ends, democracy begins. I get the impression it all happened more subtle—and ultimately more interesting.

The story begins before 1975.

By the final decade of Franco’s rule, Spain had already begun to change. Economic growth, tourism, and urbanization created a society that no longer fit comfortably within an authoritarian framework. While the regime remained rigid, everyday life became more fluid, more connected to Europe, and less ideologically controlled.

When Franco died, the system did not collapse. It adapted.

Power passed to Juan Carlos I, and from there to a group of reformers willing to dismantle the dictatorship from within. Under Adolfo Suárez, political parties were legalized, elections were held, and a new constitution was drafted—all within a remarkably short period.

What makes this process distinctive is not just what changed, but what did not. Institutions were reformed rather than replaced. Many figures from the old regime remained in place. This continuity was not accidental—it was the price of stability in a country still marked by the memory of civil war and the threat of military intervention.

The result was a transition built on compromise.

That compromise proved both effective and incomplete. Spain avoided large-scale violence and established a functioning democracy, but it did so by postponing deeper questions about accountability and historical memory. The so-called “pact of forgetting” allowed the country to move forward, while leaving parts of its past unresolved.

Seen through this lens, the Spanish transition is neither a simple success story nor a quiet continuation of dictatorship. It is a negotiated reinvention—one that worked, but not without cost.

Further reading

• The Transition to Democracy in Spain — by José María Maravall

• The Triumph of Democracy in Spain — by Paul Preston

• Ghosts of Spain — by Giles Tremlett

• Helen Graham — author of several key works on modern Spain, including The Spanish Civil War

• Spain: Dictatorship to Democracy — by Raymond Carr and Juan Pablo Fusi

The Head on the Platter: A Story in Stone at La Sauve-Majeure

The Romanesque capital from Abbaye de La Sauve-Majeure showing the the story of the beheading of John the Baptist.

Walk through the ruins of Abbaye de La Sauve-Majeure (in Gironde, near Bordeaux), and you are led — almost deliberately — from one sculpted capital to the next. These are not random decorations. They are placed, selected, and meant to be seen.

Among them is a striking scene: a king seated at a banquet, a young woman dancing, and — at the centre — a severed head presented on a dish.

The abbey itself was founded in 1079, deep in what was then a vast forest east of Bordeaux. From this seemingly remote location, it grew into one of the most powerful Benedictine centres in Aquitaine. It controlled dozens of dependent houses and stood directly on one of the major pilgrimage routes to Santiago de Compostela. Pilgrims passed through in large numbers, bringing not only devotion but also wealth and influence.

For these travellers, the sculpted capitals functioned as a kind of visual guide to the Christian world: stories, warnings, and moral lessons carved into stone. You did not need to read. You only needed to look — and to recognise.

This particular story would have been widely known. And it was not meant to comfort.

The ruins of Abbaye de La Sauve-Majeure — once a powerful Benedictine centre on the pilgrimage route to Santiago.

A promise that could not be taken back

The scene comes from the Gospel of Mark.

John the Baptist, a prophet known for speaking plainly, had publicly criticised King Herod. The king had married Herodias, the wife of his own brother — something John declared unlawful. It was a bold accusation, and a dangerous one. Herodias wanted John dead. Herod himself was more conflicted. He feared John, even respected him, and listened to him with a strange mixture of fascination and unease.

Then came the turning point: a feast held on the king’s birthday.

The court gathered, the atmosphere loosened, and Herodias’ daughter — later known as Salome — danced before the guests. Herod, pleased and perhaps carried away by the moment, made a public promise: she could ask for anything she wished.

She stepped away, consulted her mother, and returned with a request that must have stunned everyone present — the head of John the Baptist, brought to her on a platter.

The Gospel describes the moment with quiet precision:

The king was exceedingly sorry; yet for his oath’s sake, and for their sakes which sat with him, he would not reject her. (Mark 6:26)

And so the order was given. John was executed in prison, his head brought in and handed first to the girl, then to her mother.

A warning in stone

Back on the capital, the entire story unfolds at once. The dancer is still in motion. The king is still at his feast. And already, the head is there — presented, unavoidable.

Medieval sculptors did not separate events into neat sequences. Instead, they compressed them, forcing the viewer to see how one moment leads directly to the next. Cause and consequence are carved into the same block of stone.

What gives the scene its lasting power is not only its violence, but its familiarity. Herod is not portrayed as a monster. He hesitates. He understands. And then he gives in — to pride, to pressure, to the expectations of those watching him.

For the monks of La Sauve-Majeure and the pilgrims who passed through, the message was clear. The greatest failures are not always acts of rage, but moments of weakness — when a promise, a reputation, or a room full of people becomes more important than doing what is right.

Nearly a thousand years later, the stone has weathered. The story has not.

A Pope in Exile: The Strange Story of Papa Luna in Peñíscola (Spain)

Statue of Pope Benedict XIII—known as Papa Luna—standing before the castle of Peñíscola, where he lived in defiance as a self-declared pope until his death in 1423.

On the Mediterranean coast of Spain lies the striking town of Peñíscola, crowned by a fortress that seems to rise straight out of the sea. At first glance, it looks like many other historic strongholds along the Spanish coast. But this castle holds an unusual story—one that involves not just kings and battles, but a pope who refused to step down.

Today, visitors strolling through the Plaza de Armas will find a bronze statue of this stubborn figure. He is known locally as “Papa Luna.” His real name was Pope Benedict XIII, and his story takes us back to one of the most chaotic periods in the history of the Catholic Church.

When the Church Had More Than One Pope

To understand how a pope ended up in Peñíscola, we need to step into the late Middle Ages. At that time, the papacy was not only a spiritual authority but also deeply entangled in politics, power, and wealth. In 1309, under pressure from the French crown, the papal court moved from Rome to Avignon—a period often referred to as the “Babylonian Captivity” of the Church.

Decades later, when Pope Gregory XI brought the papacy back to Rome in 1377 and died shortly after, the situation spiraled into crisis. Cardinals could not agree on a successor, and soon there were two competing popes: one in Rome and one in Avignon.

Europe split along political lines. Countries like England and much of northern Europe supported Rome, while France and parts of Spain supported Avignon. The unity of the Church had fractured.

From Two Popes to Three

Efforts to solve the crisis only made things worse. In 1409, the Council of Pisa attempted to depose both rival popes and elect a new one. Instead of solving the problem, it created a third claimant. For a time, there were three men claiming to be the rightful pope.

Finally, the Council of Constance (1414–1418) managed to restore a degree of unity. A new pope, Pope Martin V, was elected and recognized as the sole head of the Church.

All, that is, except one.

The peninsula of Peñíscola, crowned by its castle, rising from the Mediterranean.

The Pope Who Refused to Quit

Pope Benedict XIII—Papa Luna—refused to resign. Convinced of his legitimacy, he fled to Spain, where he found protection in the castle of Peñíscola. There, perched above the sea, he continued to act as pope.

For years, he held out. Even as most of Europe moved on, he retained pockets of support, particularly in parts of Spain and Scotland. From his fortress, he issued decrees and maintained the rituals of a papal court, as if nothing had changed.

It is a remarkable image: a lone pope, isolated on a rocky peninsula, defending not a city or a kingdom, but his claim to spiritual authority.

The End of Papa Luna—and an Unexpected Epilogue

Papa Luna remained in Peñíscola until his death in 1423. But his story did not end there. His remains were taken back toward his birthplace. Centuries later, in a twist that feels almost surreal, his skull was stolen around the year 2000. Eventually recovered, it now resides in Zaragoza.

Meanwhile, his legacy lives on most vividly in Peñíscola itself. The castle is still often referred to as “Papa Luna’s Castle,” and his statue watches over the square, a reminder of a time when even the papacy could fracture into competing realities.

Further reading

• The Western Schism (1378–1417) — Walter Ullmann

• The Avignon Papacy — Yves Renouard

• The Stripping of the Altars — Eamon Duffy