History and Critical Analysis

Five rival kingdoms, a crumbling Moroccan sultanate, and one fortified city at the throat of the strait. How Portugal's assault on Ceuta in 1415 turned a crusading momentum into an oceanic destiny.

When the guns fall silent, the economists arrive with their spreadsheets and their promises of a recovery. But for most war-torn countries, the true legacy of conflict is not a peace dividend but a permanent subtraction from prosperity—a scar that deepens with each passing generation.

War is the ultimate uninsurable risk—and yet, in the shadowy syndicates of Lloyd’s of London and the boardrooms of Washington’s development-finance bureaucracy, a price is placed on it every day. The insurers who underwrite the costs of missiles, mines and maritime chaos do not simply reflect the reality of conflict. They shape it.

When sanctions throttle the banking system and bombs flatten the high street, money finds other ways to move. The informal financial networks that thrive in war zones are not a curiosity of the underground economy—they are its arteries.

After the bombs stop falling, the real money starts to flow. But the business of rebuilding war zones is a masterclass in how billions of dollars of aid can enrich a well-connected few while leaving the rubble largely untouched.

When a country is shattered by war, its bonds do not simply default—they are snapped up, litigated over, and traded for a profit by a new breed of investor who thrives on sovereign distress

A global surge in military spending has turned the defence industry into one of the world’s most lucrative—and politically untouchable—asset classes

Who truly profits from war, who foots the bill, and how the ledger reshapes global capitalism

A forensic investigation of Jebel Sahaba, the 13,000-year-old cemetery that changed our understanding of human violence. Four articles deconstruct what the bones actually say.

If this was not the oldest war, what was it? And why the distinction matters.