Religion is often ignored as a political factor; in the Middle East, this is not possible. Read by Leighton Pugh. Image: Supporters of the pro-Iranian Lebanese Hezbollah group wave the party flags in front of a poster of late Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini during a ceremony in Beirut. Credit: dpa picture alliance / Alamy Stock Photo

Wherever we insist on truth in order to win over our adversaries, we awaken a spirit of violence that endangers our living-together in the world. Read by Leighton Pugh. Image: The Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre by Francois Dubois. Credit: Niday Picture Library / Alamy Stock Photo 

Mystical experience is the missing link in modern accounts of how human beings came to be conscious. Read by Leighton Pugh. Image: Trasverberazione di Santa Teresa d’Avila (1640). Credit: jozef sedmak / Alamy Stock Photo 

The history and evolution of (proto) religious behaviour is ancient. Read by Leighton Pugh. Image: Print of early humans making fire. Credit: Science History Images / Alamy Stock Photo

Finding a new settlement between the Anywheres and the Somewheres is now the central task of modern politics. Read by Leighton Pugh. Image: Poverty in London, 1919. Credit: Classic Picture Library / Alamy Stock Photo

The proletarianisation of knowledge promises a bumpy ride for both us and capitalism as we know it. Read by Leighton Pugh. The New York Stock Exchange. Credit: Sergi Reboredo / Alamy Stock Photo 

A good political community can only live and flourish in cities that speak to the soul of the citizens and inspire the love of order. Read by Leighton Pugh. Image: Map of Renaissance Florence. Credit: Pictures Now / Alamy Stock Photo

In modern Russia, the past is being rewritten to suit Vladimir Putin's script. Read by Leighton Pugh. Image: People carry portraits of their relatives - soldiers of the Second World War - as they take part in the Immortal Regiment march in downtown Moscow. Credit: SOPA Images Limited / Alamy Stock Photo

The intellectual dark web will, most likely, be a flicker in history, a reminder of when the West’s conversation was at its most shrill, and when free-thinking people had to look to underground clubs for a place to air their thoughts. Image: Camille Paglia. Credit: Independent / Alamy Stock Photo

A defence of capitalism will have to rest first and foremost on an appeal to ethics, obligation, and duty. Read by Leighton Pugh.

Our information-rich civilisation is not superior or inferior to the pre-literate world of Brazil's indigenous peoples, just different. Read by Leighton Pugh.

This celebration of wealth, its frequent elevation to an almost religious level, and its justification not only in terms of its social utility but also, and more remarkably, in personal terms, is one of the defining characteristics of the Florentine public culture and private ethos in the fifteenth century and beyond. Read by Leighton Pugh. Image: An opulent fresco in Renaissance Florence. Credit: Peter Horree / Alamy Stock Photo 

We must rescue our cities from a culture of ugliness. Read by Leighton Pugh. Image: Sol House, Northampton. Credit: Paul Hanson / Alamy Stock Photo

Even with all its data and technology, contemporary conflict fits uneasily with our definitions of modernity. Read by Leighton Pugh Image: Mosul's old city destroyed by bombing. Credit: Associated Press / Alamy Stock Photo 

Warfare made the early modern state. Read by Leighton Pugh. Image: Renaissance-era woodcut of King Louis IX of France and his army disembarking at Damietta, Egypt, in 1249. In a common anachronism, the army and fleet are equipped with cannons. Credit: Florilegius / Alamy Stock Photo 

As China ramps up its military spending, the government in Beijing plays up its role in the Second World War. Read by Leighton Pugh. Image: Chinese poster from the Sino-Japanese War. Credit: Album / Alamy Stock Photo 

Different perspectives and eye-witness accounts reveal historical fallacies and myths about the war. Read by Leighton Pugh. Image: Gustavus Adolphus II. Credit: Wiki Creative Commons

For as long as there have been cities they have attracted admiration and fear. Read by Leighton Pugh. Image: Eighteenth century map of London. Credit: Chronicle / Alamy Stock Photo

Alfred Thayer Mahan's writings on naval warfare have overshadowed his contributions to geopolitics. His theories, however, are clearly playing out today. Read by Leighton Pugh.  Image: A print of a First World War Imperial German Navy battlecruiser, the SMS Goeben. Credit: Troy GB images / Alamy Stock Photo

Isolationist thinking and exceptionalism is on the rise and our global culture is the poorer for it. Our civilisations thrive when in conversation with each other: ideas are exchanged and self-reflection is promoted. Read by Leighton Pugh. Image: An American Mercantile Building in Yokohama, 1861. Credit: Heritage Image Partnership Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo.

What are myths for? More than entertainment alone, these epic tales helped the Ancients follow current affairs. Read by Leighton Pugh. Image: Heritage Image Partnership Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo

In war, we are, like the Duke of Wellington, still trying to guess what is on the other side of the hill, we just have more tools to help us do so. Read by Leighton Pugh Image: The Left Wing of the British army in Action at the Battle of Waterloo, June 18th 1815. Credit: Historica Graphica Collection/Heritage Images/Getty Images

Hitler's conviction that a new Eurasian order should be constructed with Germany at its zenith had its ideological roots in the early science of geopolitics. Read by Leighton Pugh. Image: This map of Russia and surrounding countries highlights Hitler's campaign in Russia and how it went wrong. Credit: Bettmann

Scholars of esotericism are often asked to justify their field of research and its place in modern society. However, esotericism provides fertile ground for radical thinking and is a useful means of considering the limitations of standard western thought. Read by Leighton Pugh. Image:The Flammarion Wood engraving. The image is often used as a metaphorical illustration of either the scientific or the mystical quests for knowledge. Credit: RGB Ventures / SuperStock / Alamy Stock Photo.

While no longer a state power, the Catholic Church remains a powerful political force in modern diplomacy. Read by Leighton Pugh. Image: Pope Francis with his weekly audience in St. Peter's Square, Vatican City, in 2018. Credit: Massimo Wallichia / Getty Images.

Changing technology, climate change, and transformations in global finance mean another new era for cities is dawning: the fifth, or digital, age. Read by Leighton Pugh. Image: Ecological skyscraper in Milan. Credit: Paolo Bona / Alamy Stock Photo.

The European Middle Ages have been deemed an era of regression but this couldn't be further from the truth. In this period, the foundations were laid to establish a liberal West centred around the rights of the individual. Read by Leighton Pugh. Image: Construction of highway, eighteenth century France Engineers on horseback inspecting the work, a painting Claude-Joseph Vernet, 1775. Credit: Lebrecht Music & Arts / Alamy Stock Photo.

Cities have been reduced to centres of soulless materialism and their citizens to non-stop consumers. If we hope to create beautiful surroundings, a rethink is required. Read by Leighton Pugh. Image: The Vessel at Hudson Yards, New York City. Credit: robertharding / Alamy Stock Photo.

Asian literature, with its technologically-adept Chinese emperors, Animist Spirit-negotiators, and Yogic sages, shows us how to live well in troubled times. Read by Leighton Pugh.  Image: Ma Yuan's The Yellow River Breaches its Course, from a series of paintings of water.

The US cultivated a garden that it grew weary of the burdens of sustaining but, once all other alternatives have been exhausted, the US will be pushed back into defending its liberal world order. Read by Leighton Pugh. Image: 'Young America rescues Europe!', declares a French cartoon from 1918. Credit: Pictorial Press Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo.

Augustine’s seminal book was written in the context of the Roman Empire, but it remains ever-relevant. Read by Leighton Pugh.  Image description: St Augustine / Wiki Public domain.

For the United States, geopolitics has always been about national identity, even in an era of globalisation. Perhaps it always will be. Read by Leighton Pugh. Image description: The Marine Corps War Memorial, also known as Iwo Jima Memorial. Credit: DeAgostini/Getty Images

Navigating politico-religious disagreements in a spirit of civility is nigh-on impossible in eras in which the meaning of civility itself is contested. How do we speak to each other civilly in a time of incivility? Read by Leighton Pugh. Image description: Girolamo Savonarola's execution on the Piazza della Signoria in Florence in 1498. Credit: Heritage Image Partnership Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo.

In the Cold War the Kremlin tried to convince foreign audiences its disinformation campaigns were real, today the aim seems to be different. Read by Leighton Pugh. Image description: Soviet poster of a tank on Red Square. Credit: Alamy Stock Photo.

The crusades, jihad, and wars in defence of intangible ideals all have their origins in a short-lived conflict in the 6th century BC. Read by Leighton Pugh. Stone relief from the palace of Ashurbanipal, A detail from the battle of Til Tuba. Teumman the Elamite king is trying to escape but his chariot crashes. His horses panic, while he is trying to escape with an arrow in his back, supported by his son. Assyrian. Late Assyrian, c 645 BC. Nineveh, Assyria, Ancient Iraq. (Photo by Werner Forman/Universal Images Group/Getty Images)

Globalisation may appear to be a cornerstone of modernity but humans have always both craved and feared connection, be it social, commercial, spiritual or scientific. Read by Leighton Pugh.  A 15th Century illustration from a Turkish manuscript depicting a surgical operation. Medical understanding was an important element of the exchange of knowledge between the Islamic world and Europe. Credit: Wikipedia Commons

Garibaldi’s retreat to his home in Caprera spawned a liberal-nationalist ideal of statesmanship that would live long in the European imagination. Read by Leighton Pugh. Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807-1882) in his signature red shirt, gazing towards his beloved Italy from a cliff edge on the island of Caprera off the coast of Sicily. Illustration c1920. Credit: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

The Holy Roman Empire was neither a nation state nor indeed a conventional empire. Instead, its inhabitants were unified through a web of legal rights. Read by Leighton Pugh. A miniature of the Treaty of Verdun, 843. Emperor Louis I (right) blessing the division of the Frankish Empire in 843 into West Francia, Middle Francia, and East Francia. Credit: Wikimedia commons.

Westphalia’s legacy of compromise and conditional sovereignty shows the way to peace in the Middle East. Read by Leighton Pugh. The Ratification of the Treaty of Münster, 1648. Found in the collection of the National Gallery, London. Credit: Fine art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images

While critical theory is not without its uses, it is time that we take a more constructive approach to social issues. ‘Mistake theory’ can offer a useful lens. Read by Leighton Pugh Students graduating from Birmingham University, England. Credit: Malcolm McDougall Photography / Alamy Stock Photo. Update Description

East Asia, especially China's, economic rise in the latter half of the twentieth century was sudden and impressive but now, growth is stalling. This, combined with the rivalry between the US and China and sovereignty disputes has destabilised the region. Read by Leighton Pugh. This essay was first published in 2016. High-rise buildings replace old residences in  Zhejiang, China. Credit: Charles O. Cecil / Alamy Stock Photo

Rather than protecting individual data privacy, the fate of democracy in our networked age might depend on establishing a new, radically transparent contract of trust between government and citizens. Estonia is leading the way. Read by Leighton Pugh. Image: Churches, other landmarks and old buildings at the Old Town in Tallinn, Estonia. Credit: Tuomas Lehtinen / Alamy Stock Photo

A history of the nineteenth century tells not just of newly-formed nations, but of newly-developing nationalism. Read by Leighton Pugh.  Image: Carving Up The World A satirical cartoon by James Gillray, showing British Prime Minister William Pitt and the French leader Napoleon Bonaparte, carving up the world between them. Entitled 'The Plumb Pudding in Danger' - pub. 26th February 1805

The crucifixion lodged suffering at the heart of Christianity: to suffer was to be like Christ. This reframing of suffering had far-reaching consequences for world history. Read by Leighton Pugh. Image: Jesus Christ on the Cross with St. Mary and St John, painted by Albrecht Altdorfer, circa 1512. Credit: Niday Picture Library / Alamy Stock Photo.

With forces such as identity politics and supra-national bodies gaining traction across Europe, the concept of the nation state has never been more important. Read by Leighton Pugh. Image: A painting of the Dutch envoy Adriaan Pauw entering Münster around 1646 for the peace negotiations, painted by Gerard ter Borch. Credit: Wikipedia Commons/Stadtmuseum Münster

Geography and politics are closely intertwined, although that no more means that all geography is political than that all politics is geographical. Read by Leighton Pugh. Image: An American map of the West Coast of Africa from Sierra Leone to Cape Palmas, 'including the colony of Liberia'. Credit: Everett Collection Historical / Alamy Stock Photo

The Romans burnt Carthage’s books and buildings – but ‘Punic’ identity remained influential throughout Antiquity. Read by Leighton Pugh. Image: Print of ancient Carthage. Source: Wiki Creative Commons

The era in world history that began with the fall of the Soviet Union is drawing to its close. The post-Cold War Eurasian settlement that the United States and its allies imposed after 1990 has three big challengers - Russia, China and Iran. Read by Leighton Pugh. Image: A symbol of American power, the National Capitol in Washington, DC. Credit: Christian Offenberg / Alamy Stock Photo.