Steven Tucker

Steven Tucker is a UK-based writer and independent scholar whose work has appeared in print and online in the US, UK, Australia and Ireland, and who writes the regular ‘Strange Statesmen’ column in Fortean Times magazine, detailing the lives and misdeeds of history’s strangest politicians and military dictators. He is the author of over ten books about various overlapping fields such as history, politics, economics, science, folklore, mythology, medicine, fringe-beliefs and eccentrics. His latest book, ‘Hitler’s & Stalin’s Misuse of Science’ (Frontline/Pen & Sword) is out now, and demonstrates how the political abuse of science in historic totalitarian dictatorships is playing out anew again today in the modern West.

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Putin’s Attempts to Ban ‘Satanism’ Are Just Another Means of Crushing Internal Dissent

Recent Russian parliamentary sessions devoted to ‘combatting Satan’ are really just disguised exercises in smearing political opponents and Ukrainians as agents of irredeemable supernatural evil.

Putin’s Perpetual Political Theater and “The Wizard of the Kremlin”

A new novel (and movie) about Vladimir Putin’s chief spin-doctor explain how the true battle between Ukraine and Russia is not one of warring armies, but of competing narratives

Japan’s New Culture Warriors: Cute Cartoon Characters As Soldiers of Soft Power Fortune

Japan’s military is forbidden by law from sending its troops to fight abroad; so why not send fictional 2D ones instead?

Holy Mary, Mother of Vlad: Blessed Virgins, Indestructible Icons and Putin’s Military Miracles

The Kremlin is busily deploying a new weapon to boost their troops’ flagging morale: counterfeit miracles of Christ, Mary and the Saints.

Heil, Hobbit!: Giorgia Meloni and the Politicization of JRR Tolkien

In post-war Italy, the fantasy epics of JRR Tolkien became required reading for the post-fascist right; but does that really mean Hobbits were all Hitlerites?

Soft Soap Diplomacy: Chinese Televisual Propaganda in Africa

The new ‘Chinese Savior’ genre of Beijing-backed TV drama is designed to enslave rather than save Africans

Dictators of Reality: When Political Ideology Sows the Seeds of Pseudoscience

When ideology is placed before truth in science, the laws of nature themselves can become its greatest victims.

With God On Their Side: When Prayer Is Mightier Than the Sword

Praying to God for victory in warfare is all very well – but what if your troops just don’t believe in it?

God or Godzilla?: Oppenheimer and the Dangers of Taking Nuclear Metaphors Too Literally

Some spiritual interpretations of atomic warfare are perfectly valid – others are positively radioactive

The Wild-Goose Chase For Red October: The Resurfacing of Sweden’s Phantom Submarines

Recent rumors of secret Russian underwater operations across Scandinavia have their (sonar) echoes in similar events from the 1980s.