Nothing is necessarily as you thought it was, and you should never believe what you're told until you've had a chance to study it for yourselves
Quote of the day
 Email & RSSSign up to oD's editorial summaries email:
 NavigationThe World
Our writersPopular ArticlesRecent: |
 |
a world without monarchy?The monarchy invokes nostalgia, radicalism, and the pain of loss. Adam Zamoyski reconnects Polish history with European enlightenment. For Shusha Guppy, the Persian tradition contains the wisdom of just rule, while Nushin Arbabzadeh contrasts Afghan plainness, Iranian glamour and English serenity. Denis Safrany is realistic about Belgian chances of survival; Solana Larsen feels the pull of affection in Denmark; Natasha Twal laments Jordan’s king; and Misaki Kamouchi sees women breathing new life into Japanese tradition. Tom Nairn sees the British Queen’s jubilee as a people’s farewell, and Sulak Sivaraksa contrasts Buddhist principles with modern practice in Thailand.
Firdowsi’s epic, “The Book of Kings”, is even more than a great product of Persian civilisation. In conveying the essence of kingship as divinely ordained yet conditional on just and protective rule, the principles of the millennium-old epic still have the power to move – and convince. Read the rest of this post...
Like Australia, New Zealand is questioning the role and need for its antipodean Monarchy. Read the rest of this post...
Political change in Serbia includes the revival of monarchist ideas. But the version of Serbian history they entail is contested. Read the rest of this post...
The Emperor will not attend the opening ceremony, but will he be cheering at the final? Read the rest of this post...
People at the sharp end of class division are less favoured by ‘stability’. Read the rest of this post...
The real distance between Denmark and England lies not in the status of monarchy, but in the core of their national identity. Read the rest of this post...
Monarchy? We're not very far down the civilised road. Read the rest of this post...
The influence of monarchy on British life is a matter of warm emotion as well as cool reason. Read the rest of this post...
The British monarch’s golden jubilee is the festival of nostalgia of a decaying state. But within the ceremonies of farewell lies the hunger for a revived democracy. Read the rest of this post...
If the proposed constitutional monarchy of the Enlightenment period had been allowed to succeed, Europe’s entire historical course might have been altered. Read the rest of this post...
The courtiers may resist change, but new life is entering the Japanese royal family.
The idea of righteous kingship has an honourable role in Thai history and religious tradition. A respected social critic says that today, reform is necessary if the institution is to live up to its best ideals. Read the rest of this post...
Even where its own identity is ambiguous, political skill has allowed the Hashemite monarchy to maintain public loyalty in a turbulent region. Read the rest of this post...
After childhood images of Iran and Afghanistan, the transcendental ordinariness of the British Queen gave Nushin Arbabzadeh a fresh perspective on monarchy. Read the rest of this post...
Iranian and Austrian experience suggests to this observer that the argument for constitutional monarchy against republicanism is most convincing on pragmatic grounds. Read the rest of this post...
In Australia, the argument about monarchy is intimately tied to the tension between ‘old’ and ‘new’ worlds. Read the rest of this post...
A monarch is an indispensable part of my heritage. Logic says it shouldn’t be...and yet it is. Read the rest of this post...
The monarchy was present at Belgium’s creation. Will it share the nation’s demise? Read the rest of this post...
The bond of affection between monarchy and people in Denmark is grounded in a shared sense of the national character. Read the rest of this post...
|
|
Elections Most discussed articles...
|
