Review of New Book: Don’t Shoot The Journalists
This post is my review of Don’t Shoot the Journalists: Migrating to Stay Alive as published in the academic journal ‘Journalism’. You can see the online version of the article here Book Review: Don’t Shoot the Journalists: Migrating to Stay Alive – James Rodgers, 2025 . On Sunday 10...
The Story My Journalist Friend From Gaza Never Wanted to Write: Their Family Is Starving
Rafah, southern Gaza, October 2003. Photo © James Rodgers THE PICTURE ABOVE is from Gaza. It was taken more than 20 years ago. The world’s shame at what is happening there now will last much longer than that. There are still small ways in which we can help. This...
Grozny 2000: the Start of Putin’s 25 Years of War
This post is an extract from an article published earlier this week by The New European . I wrote it to mark the 25th anniversary of Vladimir Putin’s first victory in a Russian presidential election. The day of the vote, I was reporting for the BBC from Grozny, a...
By Train Through Former Battlefields In A Newly Troubled Europe
War memorial at the Gare de L’Est, Paris. This post is an extract of my latest article in The New European. It’s published in the current issue, and reflects on a train journey through some of Europe’s former war zones at a time of fears for the future of...
Chechnya: 30 Years Since The Start of Modern Russia’s Wars
The centre of Grozny, Chechnya, Russian Federation, spring 1995 © James Rodgers Thirty years ago this week, the Russian army began its assault on Grozny at the start of the Chechen War. In a world currently suffering several wars, including Russia’s war on Ukraine, it is not surprising this...
My article in this week’s New European ‘Denmark’s Sounds of War’
An abandoned Second World War fortification, Fanø, Denmark © James Rodgers For this week’s New European, I wrote about a concert where the music brought echoes of Europe’s war-torn past. There’s an extract here, and you can read the full article here. FANØ, A TINY ISLAND off Denmark’s west...
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...
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...
Gaza, Israel, Peace and War in the Middle East
Over the Christmas and New Year holiday, I took the opportunity to reflect on the war in Gaza. Based on my experience of being there as a correspondent from 2002-2004, and on my subsequent research and writing, this new post is the result of that reflection. EVEN WHEN I...