A provocative new book attempts to define — so as to better tackle — our modern obsession with race. — Not So Black and White: A History of Race from White Supremacy to Identity Politics. By Kenan Malik. Hurst; 380 pages; $29.99. Kenan Malik is the archetype of an old-school antiracist. While the preface to Not So Black and White (2023) recounts his youthful epiphany that “a person’s skin, ethnicity…

The Spanish government’s move to disinter a fascist icon evinces hate rather than dutiful memory. — On Monday this week, the Spanish authorities were confronted with one of mankind’s eternal dilemmas, resolving to choose revenge over redemption and hate over hope. To mark his 120th anniversary, the left-wing coalition led by PM Pedro Sánchez had legislated earlier last summer to disinter the bodily remains of José…

This year’s CPAC Hungary will showcase the country’s promise as a testing ground of conservative policies. — At only 38 years of age, donning a Mitteleuropean moustache, a pair of bright-colored socks, newsman suspenders, and a gallant waistcoat, Miklós Szánthó has mastered the art of the Reaganite schtick. Speaking to an exuberant crowd at this March’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) outside Washington D.C., the legal analyst…

A new book argues for democracy to remain a US objective in the Mid-East — despite its outcomes. — The Problem of Democracy: America, the Middle East and the Rise and Fall of an Idea. By Shadi Hamid. Oxford University Press (OUP); 345 pages; $29.99. Looking back on the early 2010s, historians will struggle to name one US-based pundit who didn’t hail the Arab Spring as a harbinger of…

A new book by Emily Tamkin surveys the various malleable identities encompassed by the word “Jew”. — Bad Jews: A History of American Jewish Politics and Identities. By Emily Tamkin. HarperCollins; 307 pages; $29.99. For a measure of the roil to which, for all of four years, the Trump administration subjected America’s Jewish community of 7,6 million, consider two split-screen, simultaneous stories. On one hand, shortly upon…

For left-wing author Giles Tremlett, concord is the telos of Spain’s history — on the left’s terms, that is. — España: a Brief History of Spain. By Giles Tremlett. Apollo; 320 pages; $29.99. The introduction to España (2022) — an attempt at condensing all of Spain’s history into 36 vignettes the length of fairy tale chapters by columnist and historian Giles Tremlett — begins with a non sequitur the size…

When it comes to the EU’s China policy, the seeming dissonance between Macron’s appeasement and von der Leyen’s hawkishness is in fact a well-rehearsed symbiosis. — Emmanuel Macron’s half-censored interview with POLITICO aboard the plane back from his state visit to Beijing was a bombshell of geopolitical gossip just when the world needed it most. As China conducted bombing raids over Taiwan and encircled the island with its navy, the French president seemed to signal that…

Conservatives may feel adrift in the marketplace of ideas, but according to Yoram Hazony’s masterful new book, they have stood on firm intellectual ground all along. — Conservatism: A Rediscovery. By Yoram Hazony. Regnery; 441 pages; $29.99. On day one of my job leading a right-of-center think-tank in Madrid, my boss awaited a moment of ambient quiet to hurriedly sneak into my office, a bulky item hidden beneath his blazer. Just about any classic in the liberal-conservative…

Last week, von der Leyen said of China: “The story of our relationship is not yet written, and it need not be defensive.” Her visit to China begins today. — Ever since beefing up its foreign policy prerogatives with the 2009 Lisbon Treaty, the EU has accustomed the China hawks among its critics to regular bursts of dismay laced with disbelief. Among this group, both euro-Atlanticists and euro-Gaullists — factions respectively concerned with deeper transatlantic cooperation and independence from NATO…