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A decade ago, the term “narrative” rarely appeared outside academic humanities circles in Jordan. It then moved into journalism, often a sign of intellectual seriousness. Today, it has been elevated into a state project, formally embraced by the Jordanian Ministry of Culture. The ambition is wide: to construct a national narrative that stretches back two million years, drawing on prehistoric archaeological findings to anchor the nation’s presence in deep time. Yet this ambiti

During a recent email exchange, Only Connect’s editor, Richard Pooley, and I discussed the ongoing negotiations between Iran and the United States and whether President Trump could do with some basic facts on negotiating with the Iranians. Both Trump and the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, have written books on negotiating. However, Trump’s ghost-writer, Tony Schwartz, and the publisher of The Art of the Deal, Howard Kaminsky, claim Trump didn’t write a word of it.

A US President accused of sexual misconduct with an underage girl. In order to distract attention, the President orders a massive aerial bombing attack on a distant foreign country without prior consent from his allies. Of course this preposterous fiction could never happen in real life, but it was exactly this scenario which played out in the film Wag the Dog...

On 28 December each year Western Christian communities around the world mark the Feast of the Holy Innocents, commemorating the horrific events recounted in the Gospel of St Mathew (Ch 2 vv 16-17) when, having learned of the birth of Jesus Christ, Herod the Great, King of Judea (modern day Israel/Palestine) ordered the killing of all babies under the age of two years in Bethlehem and the surrounding district. Herod had been told of the prophecy that from among these childre

On 27th January 2025 the world commemorated the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi extermination camp at Auschwitz – Birkenau...