BAku
Looking back on Baku
The discovery of oil in Baku brought Ummulbanu Asadullayeva’s family respect if not respectability. Peasant-born, her grandparents ranked by the…
Reading Norman Davies’s global history is like wading through porridge
For many of us, life has become global. Areas which were previously tranquil backwaters are now hives of international activity.…
Murder in the dunes: the ‘26 Martyrs’ of Baku and the making of a Soviet legend
In the pre-dawn hours of 20 September 1918, a train, its headlamp off, heading eastwards out of Kransnovodsk on the…
The wars that really are about the oil
You can’t understand any of the world’s crises without understanding petropolitics
