Featured Essay
Selected writing
Designing Modernity

This essay was first published at The Pathos of Things newsletter. Subscribe here. Somewhere in my room (I forget where exactly) there is a box containing four smartphones I’ve cycled through in the last decade or so. Each of these phones appeared shockingly new when I first removed it from its neat cuboid packaging, though … Continue reading Designing Modernity

How the Internet Turned Sour: Jon Rafman and the Closing of the Digital Frontier

This essay was first published by IM1776 on 17th August 2021 A tumble-drier is dragged out into someone’s garden and filled with something heavy — a brick perhaps. After setting it spinning, a figure in a camouflage jacket and protective face visor retreats from the camera frame. Immediately the machine begins to shudder violently, and … Continue reading How the Internet Turned Sour: Jon Rafman and the Closing of the Digital Frontier

Tooze and the Tragedy of the Left

Adam Tooze is one of the most impressive public intellectuals of our time. No other writer has the Columbia historian’s skill for laying bare the political, economic and financial sinews that tie together the modern world. Tooze’s new book, Shutdown: How Covid Shook the World’s Economy, provides everything his readers have come to expect: a densely … Continue reading Tooze and the Tragedy of the Left

The Fall of Zuma Threatens More Chaos for South Africa

This article was originally published by Unherd on 1st July 2021 It was a moment South Africans thought would never come. On Tuesday the Constitutional Court sentenced former president Jacob Zuma to 15 months in prison, after he refused to testify at an inquiry into corruption during his time in office. When that inquiry reaches … Continue reading The Fall of Zuma Threatens More Chaos for South Africa