The Oakland Coliseum: Back to the Ballpark to say Goodbye
A stand at The Coliseum, Oakland, California, 4 July 2024, before Athletics vs Angels This is a rare post about sport, and about a sport, baseball, to which I am a newcomer. I do not pretend to any expertise, and apologize to any fans who find errors. This is...
Reporting on The Putsch to Save Soviet Power: Moscow, August 19, 1991
To mark the anniversary of the attempted coup in Moscow on August 19, 1991, I am sharing an extract from Assignment Moscow: Reporting on Russia from Lenin to Putin that covers those days that decided the fate of the dying Soviet Union. DECLARING THAT GORBACHEV had resigned for health...
Alexander Werth Reporting from Stalingrad in World War II–Conclusion
This is the second and final part of my article on Alexander Werth’s reporting from the Soviet Union during World War II. You can read the first part here, and the whole article on the website of the Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television where it was first...
New: Alexander Werth Reporting from Stalingrad in World War II
This new post is the first part of a long academic article I wrote for the Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television about the reporting of Alexander Werth from the Soviet Union for the BBC during World War II. Werth’s despatches, broadcast mostly under the title ‘Russian Commentary’,...
Gershkovich Trial is a Dangerous New Development for Journalism in Russia
This week my colleague Dina Fainberg and I wrote for The Conversation about the case of the U.S. correspondent, Evan Gershkovich, who is on trial in Russia on spying charges. This is an extract from the article. You can read the full version, where we place the case in...
Special Derby Book Festival Event, with Clive Myrie
ON JULY 29th I will be in conversation with my former BBC colleague Clive Myrie at the Derby Theatre, a special event organized by the Derby book festival. We will be discussing his book Everything is Everything, and my own work in, and writing on, Russia–including Assignment Moscow: Reporting...
A European Journey 80 years after D-Day
AS I LEFT my house in London that morning, I passed the door of another: a house where once I heard the stories of an old soldier. He came to live in my street for what became the last years of his life. Victor Syborn was part of the...
To Germany by train: a journey through European history
A railway bridge over the Rhine in Mannheim, Germany © James Rodgers For this week’s New European, I wrote about travelling from London to Germany by train, and about the railways’ history in European culture, commerce, and conflict. TIRED OF DELAYS and of all those onerous, if necessary, security...
Book Review: ‘How Finland Survived Stalin’ by Kimmo Rentola
I have not posted on here for some weeks because research for my next book, on Russia and The West since the end of the Cold War, has been my priority. I have, though, done some journalism, a review of How Finland Survived Stalin (yale.edu). I have published the...
Crimea 2014: the West’s ‘terrible mistake’. Was it the first? War in Ukraine, two years after 2022
A hoarding opposite the Russian embassy in Berlin, February 2023 © James Rodgers This latest post is an article I wrote for a special issue of Baltic Rim Economies, published in February 2024 to mark the second anniversary of the escalation of Russia’s war on Ukraine. You can read...