New for November 2021: latest journalism, and upcoming in-person book events
AS MY PHYSICAL WORLD CONTRACTED in London’s lockdowns over the last eighteen months and more, so I sometimes found my intellectual and imaginative world seemed to contract, too. I never imagined I would miss commuting on the London underground, but I did miss the stimulation that came with movement and the frequently changing faces passing through a tube carriage. There was so much less to feed the mind in those long weeks where I stayed away from the city centre, which I would have found all but deserted even had I ventured there.
Because of that, I have thought a lot this year about the past–a past when I travelled a lot, and saw the world into which I had born, and where I had lived as a child, change dramatically in ways few foresaw. It has also been a year of looking back because of two big anniversaries in history, and in my personal career as a journalist: it is 30 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and 20 years since 9/11–and the start of the first of the wars, this in Afghanistan, that followed. I reported on both those eras. As I have grown older and gained a longer view, I have thought more and more about the relationship between writing journalism, and writing history. The articles I have written this year to mark those anniversaries reflect those thoughts.
You can read my article for The New European on the end of the USSR here, and my article for NBC Think (pictured above) on reporting 9/11 and the ‘war on terror’ here .
I am also very pleased to say that I am in discussions about two live book events in London early in the new year. My last book, Assignment Moscow: Reporting on Russia from Lenin to Putin was published in 2020. As Ellie Holbook wrote in History Today, ‘Assignment Moscow exposes how the Moscow correspondent has had to adapt to multiple manifestations of censorship, or compete with state-run media, the severity of which has ebbed and flowed with changes in regime.’ The book came out at a time when in person events were all but impossible–so I will really look forward to talking about the ideas and experiences it covers in front of a live audience.
I will share details of those here, and on Twitter, as soon as they are confirmed.
