The Burning Archive

This series of podcasts is exploring the unfolding crisis of the conflict in Ukraine, security in Europe, the NATO v Russia war, and the emergence of the multipolar world. This episode (recorded on 12 March) looks at different names and mental models for the conflict - invasion, war of choice, Cold War II, incursion, special military operation and Cold War III. And it makes the case for thinking o...

This series of podcasts is exploring the unfolding crisis of the war in Ukraine, security in Europe, and the NATO vs Russia War. This episode (recorded on 9 March, Melbourne time) explores the revelations that the USA has operated over 30 Biolabs in Ukraine, the American concerns about Russian control of those facilities and what records may reveal about compliance with bans on biological and chem...

This series of podcasts is exploring the unfolding crisis of the war in Ukraine, security in Europe, and the NATO vs Russia War. This episode (recorded on 7 March, Melbourne time) explores the current situation with humanitarian corridors around main Ukrainian cities enabling evacuations, and also looks at the diplomatic positions of major players of China, India and the Gulf States. Is the world...

When COVID hit, the numbers of people who played computer games exploded - not just among adolescents but across many age groups. People found out something about gaming - that, as Forbes magazine wrote, gaming has the “potential to unlock bonds of community, educate and inspire.” This episode responds to questions posed by Isaac Rich in episode 32 ( This Archive is for the Players) , and explores...

This new series of podcasts will explore the unfolding crisis of security in Europe, precipitated by Russia's invasion of Ukraine and America/NATO's expansion eastward over 30 years. This first episode reports on the military situation on 3 March 2022, the economic war against Russia by waged by America and the European Union, and the exploding information and cultural war. This new twice-weekly p...

This special episode on the crisis in Ukraine was recorded on 26 and 27 February. I discuss the background to the conflict in the failure to negotiate a fair peace to end the cold war, and the response to Russian proposals for a new security architecture in Europe. Events are unfolding quickly and a major information war is under way. Take care all and remember what thou lovest well will not be re...

Before Britain ruled with waves, it was the empire of Spain that was known as the empire on which the sun never sets. For a century or so it even joined with Portugal to be the first and only empire of land and sea across multiple oceans that was built with pre-industrial resources. But it declined. When? How? Why? And should we remember these empires not by images of conquistadores and the Spanis...

Before Britain ruled with waves, it was the empire of Spain that was known as the empire on which the sun never sets. For a century or so it even joined with Portugal to be the first and only empire of land and sea across multiple oceans that was built with pre-industrial resources. But it declined. When? How? Why? And should we remember these empires not by images of conquistadores and the Spanis...

In the first episode recorded in 2022 Jeff Rich explores the big signs of cultural decay and renewal in 2021, and makes for predictions for the year ahead. And in a postscript comments on the major geo-political events of the summer, including the information war on Ukraine and the Xi-Putin Summit in Beijing that does not augur well for the declining American Empire.

In this Summer Edition of The Burning Archive , Jeff Rich reviews the events of 2021 against the theme of social fragmentation. For so many people around the world, 2020 and 2021 have been the years of the Great Seclusion. How has the response to the pandemic fired social fragmentation and been fuelled by social isolation and loss of community? Can we chart a course to a more forgiving and toleran...

In this Summer Edition of The Burning Archive , Jeff Rich reviews the major events of 2021 against the theme of political decay. But should the The Burning Archive replace the idea of political decay with political disorder? 2021 has tested the limits of the (liberal) democratic political orders of many countries around the world. Experts and populists have clashed... we are still waiting on a ver...

In this Summer Edition of The Burning Archive, Jeff Rich reviews the events of the year in geopolitics against the theme of imperial rivalry. With the retreat from Afghanistan and dramatic diplomatic clashes, 2021 has been a pivotal year in relationships between the Great States of United States of America, China, Russia, the European Union and India. What does 2022 hold? Wars in Ukraine, Taiwan o...

In this first Summer Edition of The Burning Archive Jeff Rich reflects on 12 surprises, discoveries or gifts that mattered most in 2021. Be prepared to be surprised as well-known and obscure stories from the year are retold. Ranging across empire, politics, society, culture, history and the writer/podcaster's life, this episode will entertain you, and show how the past is not dead - the past is no...

Could computer games be the last best hope of culture vultures and history buffs? Should we turn to the dragon-slayers of Skyrim to save the treasures of the past from the dragon fire of the Burning Archive ? Can we find solace in literature by reading the magical tomes of the floating city of Dalaran as it is imagined in that great total art work ( Gesamtkunstwerk ) of our times, World of Warcraf...

Can all the stories of the world be summarised as just seven basic plots, or even just the four narrative forms first defined by Aristotle? There is a long history of trying to make sense of the common patterns of stories, myths and legends. This episode of The Burning Archive examines tragedy and comedy, the story of the story of stories, the seven basic plots, and how even historians write their...

Simon Sebag Montefiore writes: “Jerusalem, so loveable in many ways, so hate-filled in others, always bristling with the hallowed and the brash, the preposterously vulgar and the aesthetically exquisite, seems to live more intensely than anywhere else; everything stays the same yet nothing stays still. At dawn each day, the three shrines of the three faiths come to life in their own way.” But why...

In 1095 Pope Urban II - whose real name was Odo of Chatillon - gave a rousing speech at Clermont in France. He promised forgiveness and pardon for all of the past sins of those who would fight to reclaim the holy land from Muslims and free the eastern churches. So began the crusades - the wars between Christendom and Islam for the Holy Lands in the Levant and by Western Christians against pagan an...

How did the Byzantine Empire acquire the secrets of silk production from China, and what does it tell us about the history of silk, the diffusion of silk trade across the world, and the Silk Roads of Eurasia? Full details of material referred to in the episode are at www.theburningarchive.com.

In October 1731 there was a fire in the Ashburnham House residence of the Keeper of the King’s libraries in Westminster, London. The fire threatened the one and only manuscript of the Old English poem, Beowulf . It was rescued by the librarian and others leaping from the window, clasping manuscripts. Singed but intact, Beowulf was literally saved from a Burning Archive . 200 years later in 1936 an...

Did the fall of Rome lead to the birth of Europe, Christendom and Western civilisation? This episode of The Burning Archive answers - What was the Roman Empire? What was it like before it fell? Why was it significant and still matters to us today. In Part I Jeff Rich sets out the story arc of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, and sets the scene for a more detailed discussion of why it fell...

Join the The Burning Archiv e Podcast for a special feature on the 2021 Nobel Prize for Literature, and learn not only about the hushed excitement of the winner (sshh no spoilers), but the history of the prize, favourite winners, best losers, and most contentious scandals. Congratulations to Abdulrazak Gurnah, and thanks to nobelprize.org.

Vaclav Havel was a Czech writer and dissident who later became, after the Velvet Revolution of 1989, the President of his country. This episode continues the The Burning Archive podcast's commemoration of his writing, ideas and the model of his way of living in truth remains meaningful to us today. This episode looks at the essays, "The Power of the Powerless" (1978), "Six Asides about Culture" (1...

Vaclav Havel was a Czech writer and dissident who later became, after the Velvet Revolution of 1989, the President of his country. This episode of The Burning Archive podcast explores how his writing, ideas and the model of his way of living in truth remains meaningful to us today. This episode sets out the main events of Havel's life and the ideas of his political essay. It looks in depth at the...

The fall of Kabul has raised questions for Australia about the reliability of its alliance with the United States of America. For Australians this capitulation evokes comparisons with another decisive imperial humiliation, the fall of Singapore in 1942. The conquest by Japan of the fortress of the British Empire in South East Asia in the weeks following the attack on Pearl Harbour, led the then Au...

America’s defeat in Afghanistan has provoked an imperial crisis. This imperial crisis is not just a geostrategic or diplomatic game. It is a crisis of the ideas driving the empire - American culture, society and politics - its core belief that it is the exceptional nation. In Kabul America unwittingly surrendered not only as occupier of Afghanistan, but its claim to be leader of the so-called free...