Leszek Kolakowski

On a couple of occasions I've posted here about Leszek Kolakowski, a Polish intellectual who died several years ago, and whom I had the great good fortune of having as a teacher during graduate school. This week at The Nation you can find this long, appropriately critical if largely sympathetic, review essay on some of his posthumously published works.

Habermas Takes a Very Dim View of Merkel

Jurgen Habermas has offered a pungent assessment of the Merkel government here at Spiegel Online International: "Europe is in a state of emergency, and the political power goes to whoever decides on the admission or licensing of topics to be discussed by the public. Germany isn't dancing. It's dozing on a volcano."