Category: VOLUME IV, No. 2

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Why, I wonder, do historians – Anglo-Saxon ones anyway – have this irrepressible need to take a side-swipe at the social sciences? Mark Mazower did this in his Dark Continent (p.367), Richard Evans devoted an entire book to it (In Defence of History) and now my old friend Norman Stone joins them, (Hungarian Review,

CITY DESTINIES, HUMAN DESTINIES

CITY DESTINIES, HUMAN DESTINIES The cover photo of our March issue shows a detail of the new illumination of the structure of Margit Bridge in Budapest, designed and built by a French engineer in the famous Eiffel team (1876), and recently restored to much of its original splendour. Budapest illumination

WHY EUROPE NEEDS A FIRST AMENDMENT

It used to be a maxim that we could all remember where we were when we heard that John F. Kennedy had been shot. But that was fifty years ago this November. Most of us were not born when it happened. And Kennedy’s assassination has not yet been replaced in our

CRISIS AFTER CRISIS – ANY LESSONS LEARNT?

It is now more than half a decade since first a local American turbulence and then a global one shook the world of international finance. Half a decade should have been enough time for all those involved – politicians, economists, bankers, analysts, entrepreneurs and consumers – to digest the events

OUT OF THE STORM

NT: The government’s critics say that Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is only friendly towards the European Union or Russia when he wants something from them – the rest of the time he is rather generous with his criticism – is that true? ZsN: I think it would be a mistake to

FICO’S SLOVAKIA: THE FORCE RESTRAINED

It has been three quarters of a year since Robert Fico regained power in Slovakia by winning a decisive, uncontested majority in Parliament. So far in this cycle, though, he has kept a lower profile than is his wont, perhaps for reasons beyond his busy schedule of tasks in managing

ROSE GARDEN IN THE DEPTHS OF HELL, OR THE COLONEL’S BALLPOINT PEN

Warning: This book contains a hint of irony CHAPTER 1 EPIGRAPH: “I’ll gobble you up!” said the leopard. “So much the worse for you”, retorted the sword. (Eduardo Rózsa-Flores) According to reports from the Bolivian city of Santa Cruz, not many opposition supporters came out to chide the government pinning

THE CAPTIVE MIND OF GYÖRGY LUKÁCS

In his magisterial three volume history, Main Currents of Marxism, Leszek Kołakowski wrote: „Lukács’s personality and his role in the history of Marxism are, and no doubt will be for a long time, a matter of lively controversy. It is agreed however that he was the most outstanding Marxist philosopher

BALKANIST DISCOURSE AND ITS CRITICS

In the course of the last two decades, a considerable number of essays have been published examining the portrayal of the Balkans in the West, particularly during the conflicts of the 1990s. In those works, a continuity existed between representations offered the rein and the rich tradition in the West

STRUGGLING WITH WORDS

AB: You live in the North of England, one of the most picturesque parts of the country. I’ve heard that you hate fox-hunting but you like crows. More seriously: your favourite English poet is the famous poeta laureatus Ted Hughes, and your favourite Hungarian poet is János Pilinszky. At the same time,you admit that