Writer and researcher on China, technology and industry; author of Breakneck, research fellow at Stanford, known for a widely read annual letter.

• Likedrcmnd.app

  1913: The Year Before the Storm

  Their words

  1913: The Year Before the Storm presents a whimsical slice of Central Europe. Art historian Florian Illies collates fragments of leading figures month by month, diary-entry style.

  danwang.co

Writer and academic, author of The Cult of Smart and How Elites Ate the Social Justice Movement; writes a daily newsletter on politics, education and culture.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  The recent fall in test scores is a rich-world phenomenon, and steeper in several European countries than in America, so it cannot be blamed on American policy.

  EuropeAmerica

  Their words

  Learning loss is a global phenomenon, exacerbated by a catastrophic event, not a structural flaw unique to the American education system.

  freddiedeboer.substack.com

Emeritus professor of war studies at King's College London; wrote Strategy: A History and Command, and writes about the wars in Ukraine and Gaza as they happen.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Ukraine is defending Europe's borders, not only its own.

  Europe

  Their words

  When the Ukrainians say that they are defending Europe’s borders they are correct.

  samf.substack.com

Founder of Telegram, and before it of VK.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Europe must decide how big it wants its public sector to be: France's public spending at 58 percent of GDP is above the late Soviet Union's.

  Europe

  Their words

  Because today, if you take France for example which is a beautiful country with a lot of talented people, but public expenses are 58% of the country's GDP, it's maybe as much more than in the latest stage of the Soviet Union.

  youtube.com

Economist at the Hoover Institution; wrote The Fiscal Theory of the Price Level and blogs as The Grumpy Economist.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  High electricity prices are what is killing European industrial competitiveness.

  energyimmigrationEurope

  Their words

  The average European and UK voter, once he or she moves on from immigration, will notice how Europe and the UK have made energy unaffordable, stopped its growth-exactly as degrowthers wish-and deindustrialized, on the altar of climate policies that do nothing to improve the climate.

  Climate turning pointgrumpy-economist.com

President of the European Commission since 2019; previously Germany's defence minister.

From one piece 2025 State of the Union Address by President von der Leyen, 10 September 2025 2 beliefs · enlargement.ec.europa.eu

• Our readingkorrents.com

  This is Europe's independence moment: it must be able to provide its own defence and control the technology and energy its economy runs on.

  energyEurope

  Their words

  This must be Europe's Independence Moment. I believe this is our Union's mission. To be able to take care of our own defence and security. To take control over the technologies and energies that will fuel our economies.

  enlargement.ec.europa.eu

• Our readingkorrents.com

  A new world order based on raw power is being drawn right now, and Europe has to fight for its place in it.

  Europe

  Their words

  Battlelines for a new world order based on power are being drawn right now. So, yes, Europe must fight. For its place in a world in which many major powers are either ambivalent or openly hostile to Europe.

  enlargement.ec.europa.eu

Economist specialising in China's economy, international macroeconomics and global trade, and author of The New China Playbook.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  China lets companies innovate first and regulates afterwards, which is the opposite of Europe and is deliberately meant not to slow innovation down.

  EuropeChina

  Their words

  One interesting point is that, in China, you ask the companies to innovate first, and then you regulate after, right? So, that has led to things like P2P platforms. It’s led to lots of kind of financial innovations, some of which has actually been very helpful and good, some of which had been disastrous, but the intention to regulate after the fact is to really not slow down or hinder the innovation. This is a very different approach from Europe. You regulate first, and then companies have to work around that.

  youtube.com

Anthropologist; wrote Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World and The Secret History of the Mongol Queens.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  There is no documented case of anyone crossing between China and Europe before the Mongols, and since Genghis Khan there has not been a single year without contact between East and West.

  EuropeChina

  Their words

  We really don't have any well-documented case of anybody, say, from China visiting Europe or Europe visiting China before the Mongols. But since Chinggis Khan, there's never been a year without contact between east and west. It was permanent. Once he created it, it was permanent.

  youtube.com

Data scientist at Our World in Data and author of Not the End of the World. Writes By the Numbers, working through energy and climate questions with the numbers in front of them, and revising in public when they say something unexpected.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  High electricity prices are what is killing European industrial competitiveness.

  energyEurope

  Their words

  Another factor that is killing Europe’s competitiveness — not just for batteries but for many industrial products — is the high electricity costs.

  sustainabilitybynumbers.com

Chancellor of Germany since May 2025; leader of the CDU.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Germany will provide whatever money the Bundeswehr needs to become the strongest conventional army in Europe.

  Europe

  Their words

  Die Bundesregierung wird zukünftig alle finanziellen Mittel zur Verfügung stellen, die die Bundeswehr braucht, um zur konventionell stärksten Armee Europas zu werden.

  bundesregierung.de

Medieval historian at the LSE; writes Going Medieval and The Middle Ages: A Graphic History, and spends a lot of it correcting what people think the period was like.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  The Renaissance and early modern period were not a better time to be alive than the Middle Ages they are said to have rescued Europe from.

  Europe

  Their words

  I am not here to tell you that the medieval period is a specifically peaceful time, but it pales in comparison to what goes down in the early modern period, in which both the apparently beloved Renaissance and Enlightenment periods lie.

  On what Americans know about medieval historygoing-medieval.com

Development economist; writes Global Developments, on growth, history and the numbers behind them.

From one piece No, South Korea Was Not Poorer Than Kenya in 1960 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there

• Our readingkorrents.com

  The newly independent states of Africa were largely European inventions, assembled from peoples who had not previously shared a state.

  Europe

  Their words

  The relative absence of pre-colonial states meant that the newly independent African states were largely European inventions; modern Kenya, for instance, inherits the boundaries of British East Africa, which was created by pulling together the Kikuyu, Luo, Luhya, Kalenjin, and Kamba ethnic groups.

  global-developments.org

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Japanese colonial rule built a far deeper state in Korea than European rule ever built in sub-Saharan Africa.

  Europe

  Their words

  The Japanese empire reached far deeper into its colonies than any European empire ever did in Sub-Saharan Africa.

  global-developments.org

Writes about the biotech industry, drug development and forecasting — “I write to learn, mostly about biotech.”

• Our readingkorrents.com

  China now starts about a quarter of the world's new clinical trials, more than Europe does.

  EuropeChina

  Their words

  Chinese companies are now responsible for about a quarter of new trial starts — more than Europe.

  Will all our drugs come from China?atelfo.github.io

Writes The Pragmatic Engineer, the software-engineering newsletter, and wrote The Software Engineer's Guidebook. Formerly an engineering manager at Uber, and at Microsoft/Skype and Skyscanner before that.

• Usesrcmnd.app

  Tech Lead Journal

  Their words

  discussions from software engineering leaders, with a focus on Asia and Europe.

  blog.pragmaticengineer.com

Writes Pedestrian Observations on public transit and why infrastructure costs what it does; a pure mathematician by training, comparing how different countries build.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Decentralisation does not explain why Spain builds subways cheaply and Britain does not: the cheap countries include Europe's most centralised ones.

  Europe

  Their words

  In truth, the UK shares high costs with more decentralized countries, and Spain shares low ones with more centralized ones.

  Low Spanish Costs are not About Decentralizationpedestrianobservations.com

Social scientist at King's College London; writes The Great Gender Divergence on why societies differ in how they treat women.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Europe is losing the competition for talented migrants because it is not an attractive enough destination.

  immigrationEurope

  Their words

  Europe’s real problem is that we are not a competitive destination.

  Why is Fertility Collapsing, Globally?ggd.world

Founder of Terraform Industries and formerly a physicist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory; writes about energy, space and manufacturing.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Without SpaceX, neither the United States nor Europe would have adequate access to space of its own.

  EuropeAmerica

  Their words

  But for SpaceX, both the US and Europe would lack adequate strategic access to space.

  SLS is still a national disgracecaseyhandmer.wordpress.com

Archaeologist of the Maya and the ancient Americas; directs the Maya Exploration Center and presents the ArchaeoEd podcast.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Maya hieroglyphs must have been readable across several spoken languages, the way Chinese characters or Latin were.

  EuropeChina

  Their words

  There must have been a way that multiple languages understood the same writing system. Or maybe there was something like Latin. You know how there was a period in Europe where most people were illiterate and there was this priesthood who all understood Latin and they wrote in Latin? Maybe the hieroglyphs represent a kind of Latin in the ancient Maya world.

  youtube.com

President of the French Republic since 2017.

From one piece Speech on Europe, Sorbonne, 25 April 2024 (Elysee English transcript) 3 beliefs · elysee.fr

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Europe is mortal — it can die, and whether it does depends entirely on choices Europeans make now.

  Europe

  Their words

  My message today is simple. Paul Valéry said, at the end of the First World War, that we now know that our civilizations are mortal. We must be clear on the fact that our Europe, today, is mortal. It can die. It can die, and that depends entirely on our choices. But these choices must be made now.

  elysee.fr

• Our readingkorrents.com

  The era in which Europe bought its energy from Russia, had its goods made in China and left its security to the United States is over.

  energyEuropeChinaRussia

  Their words

  And so yes, the era when Europe bought its energy and fertilizers from Russia, had its goods manufactured in China, and delegated its security to the United States of America, is over.

  elysee.fr

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Europe cannot keep the world's strictest environmental and social rules, invest less than its competitors and run a more naive trade policy, and still expect to create jobs.

  Europe

  Their words

  We cannot sustain the most stringent environmental and social norms, invest less than our competitors, have a more naive trade policy than them and think that we will continue to generate jobs. This no longer holds together.

  elysee.fr

Historian of Ukraine at Harvard; wrote The Gates of Europe, Chernobyl and The Russo-Ukrainian War.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  There are Nazis and white supremacists in Ukraine, but they are more marginal there than the same groups are in Central Europe or the United States.

  EuropeAmerica

  Their words

  My understanding is there are Nazis in Ukraine and there are supporters of white supremacy theories, but also my understanding is that they are extremely marginal and they are more marginal than the same sort of groups are in Central Europe, maybe in the U.S. as well.

  youtube.com

Political scientist at the University of Chicago and the leading exponent of offensive realism; wrote The Tragedy of Great Power Politics.

From one piece John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 | Lex Fridman Podcast #401 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Hispanic immigrants are integrating into the American mainstream faster than the European immigrants of the nineteenth century did.

  immigrationEuropeAmerica

  Their words

  All the evidence is that Hispanics are integrating into the American mainstream more quickly and more effectively than the European immigrant groups that came starting around 1835.

  youtube.com

• Our readingkorrents.com

  There is a good chance the Second World War would have happened even without Hitler.

  Europe

  Their words

  And I believe that there is a good chance you would've had World War II in the absence of Hitler. I believe that Germany was very powerful, it was deeply worried about the balance of power in Europe, and it had strong incentives to behave aggressively in the late 1930s, early 1940s.

  youtube.com

Writer and researcher on China, technology and industry; author of Breakneck, research fellow at Stanford, known for a widely read annual letter.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Partnering with Russia was a strategic mistake for Beijing, because it is the United States and Europe that hold the markets and the technology.

  EuropeChinaRussiaAmerica

  Their words

  Beijing decided to partner with Russia, an imperial aggressor, when it is the US and Europe that have markets and technology.

  2022 letterdanwang.co

Pseudonymous essayist. Writes at gwern.net on AI scaling, statistics, genetics and long-running internet research, with heavy citation and a habit of revising old essays in place rather than leaving them wrong.

• Likedrcmnd.app

  Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II

  Their words

  a fascinating book on the bloody aftermath of WWII as the destruction wound down

  gwern.net

Ancient and military historian; writes A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, long series checking what history actually says against how popular culture tells it.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Being a rich or efficient agrarian economy is not what produces an industrial revolution, or one would have happened much earlier and somewhere other than Europe.

  Europe

  Their words

  The thing is, being a particularly complex or efficient agrarian economy doesn’t seem to have been the most important thing for producing the industrial revolution or it almost certainly would have happened earlier and probably not in Europe.

  Collections: Why No Roman Industrial Revolution?acoup.blog

Economic historian writing on the Industrial Revolution, the Great Divergence and the origins of modern growth.

• Recommendsrcmnd.app

  The European Miracle

  Their words

  I recommended Eric Jones’ The European Miracle

  blog.daviskedrosky.com