Alexei Miller

“It’s hardly worth having a word to describe not believing in God. I don’t believe in witches, but I don’t call myself an ahexist”. At an event at the Rationalist Association in London, Laurie Taylor got up close and personal with Britain’s leading public intellectual.

As the ideological frenzy of modernism gives way to “content management systems”, and as global megacities render the urban grid and its certainties obsolete, societies of discipline become societies of control. Daniel Miller cracks open the password protected “post-city”.

Almost all of the so-called Eastern European countries want to be part of the European Union – or so the argument goes. Andrei Miller analyses in this text the situation of Ukraine, a country in which the influences of power are sharply drawn between the East and the West. Whilst in the recent past, the relations to Russia have become noticeable more unstable, the economic ties remain strong. At the same time, integration into the West looks very uncertain. So which way should Ukraine go? And how can the European Union better incorporate prospective candidates?

Analysing the process of reconciliation with the Communist past in Russia during the decade from the fall of Communism to the turn of the century, Alexei Miller finds that many of the most painful problems have not been touched on and it would be optimistic to say that Russia has to a fair degree extricated itself from communism in this respect. However, one should not forget, that, viewed from the point of its beginning, it has been an extraordinary process.