James Hawes
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jameshawes.bsky.social
James Hawes
@jameshawes.bsky.social
Father of three boys. Married to an Irishwoman. Ex-novelist. Historian. Teacher of writing. Novel “Speak for England” (2005) predicted Brexit - “it deserves some kind of prescience prize" (Observer, 2017).
Der ganze Ethno-Faschismus basiert sich auf die Überzeugung, dass „wir“ instinktiv mit „uns“ leben wollen.

Ich habe viele deutsche Freunde, von denen keiner meines Wissens sich gerne mit diesen Typen befinden würde.
November 29, 2025 at 2:00 PM

Remind me why Rachel Reeves couldn’t put up fuel duty?
November 26, 2025 at 4:31 PM
How do the spads of @uklabour.bsky.social not see that with them apparently stuck consistently on under 20%, there is a huge issue very strongly supported/supported by a large majority of voters, including almost all their own surviving core?

For a party facing catastrophe, it’s a no-lose bet.
November 26, 2025 at 12:47 PM
I love the way that suddenly, a phrase in Danish will pop up which you can 100% understand, 1000 years after the Danes ruled England!
November 21, 2025 at 1:09 PM
The catastrophic state of modern languages in this country! When I was doing my PhD in the 1980s, Nottingham was a real powerhouse for #German studies.
November 7, 2025 at 9:18 AM
In 1903 (sorry) Jack London writes:
November 4, 2025 at 9:06 PM
Listen to AI! It implies that every student in Britain should consider becoming fluent in German as part of their university studies!
October 8, 2025 at 4:47 PM
In 1989, on this day, I was in my office in Maynooth 🇮🇪 - in my first job as a Germanist.

This calendar was on my wall.

None of my colleagues anywhere in the world had any idea that within a week, the #DDR would be finished.
October 6, 2025 at 10:36 AM
Hooray!
September 22, 2025 at 12:40 PM
It’s long-wave history time again as polling in #Wales - now a two horse-race between the civic/cultural nationalism of #Plaid and the toxic “Empire 2.0” fantasies of #Farage - looks extremely familiar…
September 19, 2025 at 7:35 AM
Es ist mir völlig unbegreiflich, dass ich dieses kleine Meisterwerk erst jetzt richtig lese.
September 15, 2025 at 10:13 PM
Diese Vermögensspalte wurde 1948 sozusagen eingebaut:
September 5, 2025 at 8:15 AM
September 1, 2025 at 2:58 PM
@bendorgrosvenor.bsky.social

Trying to work out which old master this photograph of Djokovic yesterday reminds me of. I thought perhaps a minor figure in a crucifixion by Rubens, but I can’t find anything…
September 1, 2025 at 2:46 PM
Absolutely true, but “money is the sinews of war”. On top of this, the EU has to stop buying Russian gas. Stop as in stop.
August 30, 2025 at 1:48 PM
I am in that crazy moment when you’ve just handed in a book (“The Shortest History of Ireland”) after three solid years of work. I cling to this, from Amazon.de now, eight years after “Germany“ was published, as a sign that it really can be worth all that time and care to get it right…
July 21, 2025 at 2:43 PM
I made a pop-art crop of #Trump gripping Melanie’s claws.
July 2, 2025 at 8:00 AM
Hängt davon ab, ob wir die deutsche Geschichte richtig verstehen.

Das Zeitraum 1871-1945 gehört im staatspolitischen Sinne nicht zur deutschen, sondern zur preußischen Geschichte.

Siehe:
June 3, 2025 at 6:46 PM
June 3, 2025 at 6:41 PM
This brilliant article, which I sadly can’t share, should be read by everyone who is tempted to buy into the lie that populists are merely following “public opinion”. They aren’t. They are trying to entrench their own elite power against rivals
May 12, 2025 at 11:42 AM
If there are really only two sides, why aren’t @teamlabouruk.bsky.social adopting a major policy change which would be backed by well over double the voters who now back Labour, and which would bring together a coalition of the willing (three out of those five parties) outgunning the Bad Guys?
May 12, 2025 at 9:07 AM
Happy 7th Birthday, dear German edition! I never dreamed this, when writing you… huge thanks to Ullstein Verlag!
#deutschland #politics #AfD
May 11, 2025 at 5:49 AM
UK politics is collapsing into insanity. Look at the polls on #Brexit. If this were any other issue, @uklabourparty.bsky.social would jump on it.
May 11, 2025 at 5:35 AM
Some say that only people who fulfil the conditions of identitarian “belonging” are justified in writing about a country/a people/a class/a gender…

Well, in a few minutes, it’s 7 years since this came out in Germany and this is Amazon.de now.

Anyone can write about anything.
May 10, 2025 at 9:30 PM
Oh, America wants nothing from England. And I say “England” advisedly. Brexit is really an English revolt against the UK. Which is doomed. See:
May 8, 2025 at 4:09 PM