World Cup And Amnesia

The Hydration-Break World Cup

Jonathan Wilson | Paris Review | 10th July 2026

Veteran of watching 16 World Cups reviews the 2026 tournament. Dynamic ticket pricing, draconian visa rules and compulsory advertising-friendly hydration breaks have irritated and appalled viewers, but the lustre of football's biggest global gathering remains. Much of this is down to the upsets, in which "the minnows have been shocking the sharks", and the irrepressible fan enthusiasm (1,900 words)

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Strategic Amnesia

Bathsheba Demuth | n+1 | 23rd June 2026

The American public has mastered the art of "calculated forgetting" about how the US acquired its territory. Imperial ambition, fuelled by money, is a big part of this history — by the end of WW2, 40 per cent of US territory had been acquired with cash — but America does not self-identify as an empire. With Greenland, Donald Trump is continuing a long tradition of trying to buy land that is not for sale (3,100 words)