It was in the Army of Africa that the future dictator fashioned his ill-defined vision of Spain's grandeur, and of his own destiny to salvage it. Franco’s formative years in Spanish Morocco | @chountisdefabbri.bsky.social engelsbergideas.com/notebook/fra...

Franco's formative years in Spanish Morocco

It was in the Army of Africa that the future dictator fashioned his ill-defined vision of Spain's grandeur, and of his own destiny to salvage it.

engelsbergideas.com

My review of @rosscarroll.bsky.social excellent book on Edmund Burke in the Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies. @bsecs.bsky.social doi.org/10.1111/1754...

Edmund Burke. By Ross Carroll. London: Polity. 2024. 224 p. £17.99. ISBN: 978‐1‐5095‐3865‐2.

Click on the article title to read more.

doi.org

A light Sunday read on the blessings and evils of Namierite historiography regarding the eighteenth century.

My take on Habermas and the 18th century coffee house for @engelsbergideas.bsky.social

Engelsberg Ideas@engelsbergideas.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Jürgen Habermas' enduring work began in the coffee-houses of Georgian London. His deepest insight was, in the end, a conservative one. Jürgen Habermas’ lost world: the coffee-house and the public sphere | @chountisdefabbri.bsky.social engelsbergideas.com/essays/jurge...

Macmillan played Greece to America’s Rome. Wilson refused Vietnam. Thatcher fought the Falklands regardless of Washington. Blair surrendered for a seat at the table. Starmer inherits the “SR” language, not the leverage. My latest for @engelsbergideas.bsky.social

Engelsberg Ideas@engelsbergideas.bsky.social · 5mo ago

The alliance between Britain and the United States worked best when the former had leverage of its own. The Special Relationship in a world of hard power | @chountisdefabbri.bsky.social engelsbergideas.com/notebook/the...

This is not a left-right problem. It is a legitimacy crisis. ✍️ Ioannes-Fabbri Chountis explains why commentators eager to look at the Gorton and Denton by-election through the lens of party politics are missing the real lesson. One common thread united the campaigns of both the Greens and Reform.

The real lesson of Gorton and Denton

Demos is Britain’s leading cross-party think-tank. We produce original research, publish innovative thinkers and host thought-provoking events.

demos.co.uk

Today’s Oxfam bookstore catch…

Edward Gibbon’s 'The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' was published 250 years ago. Its arguments remain as pertinent as ever. Edward Gibbon’s empire | Sumantra Maitra engelsbergideas.com/essays/edwar...

Edward Gibbon's empire

Edward Gibbon’s 'The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' was published 250 years ago. Its arguments remain as pertinent as ever.

engelsbergideas.com

Suez at 70. The standard morality tale blames Eden’s deception. But the deeper lesson is about alliance asymmetry: Britain discovered it couldn’t rely on the “Special Relationship” to simulate being a great power. My new essay for @engelsbergideas.bsky.social

Engelsberg Ideas@engelsbergideas.bsky.social · 6mo ago

The Suez Crisis marked the moment when British statesmen realised that they could no longer rely on the American alliance to simulate being a great power. Britain’s Suez catastrophe | Ioannes Chountis de Fabbri (@chountisdefabbri.bsky.social) engelsbergideas.com/essays/brita...

Nietzsche believed in slow reading: attentive, effortful, and transformative. This was the essence of his philosophy of reading against the rush of modern life. @engelsbergideas.bsky.social

Engelsberg Ideas@engelsbergideas.bsky.social · 6mo ago

The EI Podcast: Nietzsche’s manifesto for reading Ioannes Chountis de Fabbri (@chountisdefabbri.bsky.social) on reading as an antidote to the restless spirit of the industrial age. audioboom.com/posts/885293...

A wonderfully productive day researching in the Wentworth Woodhouse archives, thanks to the remarkable staff and volunteers.

Can’t wait to start reading this !

Researching and writing my next article in the library of the Oxford and Cambridge Club. What a privilege.

A 17th-century German physician in Nagasaki noticed something familiar: Japan’s shogun-emperor dyarchy mirrored the pope-emperor relationship he knew from home. My new essay for Engelsberg Ideas traces how different civilisations solved the same constitutional puzzles.

Engelsberg Ideas@engelsbergideas.bsky.social · 7mo ago

From Kyoto to Constantinople, political structures reveal that legitimacy rarely rests on power alone. It is sustained by the careful interplay of law, tradition, and performance. A global history of power | @chountisdefabbri.bsky.social engelsbergideas.com/essays/a-glo...

New Year’s gift: a first edition of Albemarle’s two-volume Memoirs of Ld Rockingham & his contemporaries. I can’t wait to get stuck into it.

A familiar affliction: study the eighteenth century long enough and people like Newcastle cease to be historical actors and become personalities, as Sir Lewis Namier observes here. You gossip about them, laugh at them, and, inconveniently, grow fond of them.

Fashion plate from 1788 showing a man dressed in a green, yellow and crimson striped coat, moiré waistcoat with wide stripes, apple green breeches and striped stockings. Woman dressed in a redingote of white Pékin with green Pékin petticoat, hat 'au bateau renversé' #FashionPlateFriday #dresshistory

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Thanks for following, glad to connect! Fan of all things history. But mainly posting on eighteenth-century British political, imperial, and intellectual history, Edmund Burke, Whig political culture, and classical reception.

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas, with every good hope that the season brings peace, warmth, and moments of genuine rest, and that the year ahead begins with clarity, health, and quiet happiness. 🎄

Contributors to Engelsberg Ideas highlight the books they’ve enjoyed in 2025. Books of the Year 2025 | Engelsberg Ideas engelsbergideas.com/reviews/book...

Books of the Year 2025

Contributors to Engelsberg Ideas highlight the books they’ve enjoyed in 2025.

engelsbergideas.com

A political lesson from Lord Rockingham | @chountisdefabbri.bsky.social engelsbergideas.com/portraits/a-...

A political lesson from Lord Rockingham

Twice prime minister in times of constitutional crisis, Rockingham quietly reshaped 18th-century British politics. By pioneering the idea of a principled, party-driven politics, he left behind a compe...

engelsbergideas.com

We rounded off the reporting period by welcoming a guest blog from @chountisdefabbri.bsky.social examining the importance horse-racing played, in particular at Ascot and Newmarket, in forging the first administration of the marquess of Rockingham... historyofparliament.com/2025/09/04/f...

From Jockeys to Ministers: How Horse Racing Shaped Rockingham’s First Ministry - The History of Parliament

In the latest post for the Georgian Lords, we welcome Ioannes Chountis de Fabbri from the University of Aberdeen, who considers the importance of horse racing

historyofparliament.com

In our latest issue, @chountisdefabbri.bsky.social takes a novel look at Edmund Burke's opposition to parliamentary reform, in terms of partisanship and the interplay between domestic and imperial politics. Read free 👇 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... #Parliament #History

New on the Georgian Lords by @chountisdefabbri.bsky.social: how horse racing shaped the Rockingham administration... historyofparliament.com/2025/09/04/f...

From Jockeys to Ministers: How Horse Racing Shaped Rockingham’s First Ministry - The History of Parliament

In the latest post for the Georgian Lords, we welcome Ioannes Chountis de Fabbri from the University of Aberdeen, who considers the importance of horse racing

historyofparliament.com

The Georgian Lords@georgianlords.bsky.social · 11mo ago

Today we welcome a guest post for the Georgian Lords by @chountisdefabbri.bsky.social looking at the importance of racing to the Rockingham Whigs... @histparl.bsky.social #skystorians