Can Gökçen
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cangokcen.bsky.social
Can Gökçen
@cangokcen.bsky.social
PhD at King’s College London’s Department of War Studies. Interested in the history of the British state, ideas about politics & strategy, political economy, Turkey, and all things defence & security. And The Arsenal.
Reposted by Can Gökçen
All smiles as we're back underway with our 'London: Governing the Global City' module on @strandgroup.bsky.social
MA Government Studies - Prof Tony Travers delivering his masterful '2000 years of London history in 45 mins' lecture to kick off... (1/2)
October 14, 2025 at 9:44 AM
PhD thesis is finished, checked, and ready for one final proof read. 🥳
July 8, 2025 at 4:25 PM
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Tell you who and what's profoundly un-English - anyone adopting a Blood And Soil definition of it.
June 30, 2025 at 1:15 PM
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‘Israeli military says… it has bombed the building of Iran’s state broadcaster in Tehran. centre was used by the armed forces to promote military operations under civilian cover, while using its own means and assets,” it said, without giving any evidence’ www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblo...
ISRAEL BOMBS IRANIAN STATE TV
Israel launches new attacks on Tehran as confrontation escalates and death toll rises.
www.aljazeera.com
June 16, 2025 at 5:32 PM
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Looking forward to discussing my new book ‘The Art of Delivery: The Inside Story of How the Blair Government Transformed Britain's Public Services’ with Sir Michael Barber

28 May 1830 @strandgroup.bsky.social
@policyatkings.bsky.social
@kingscollegelondon.bsky.social

Do join us! Sign up here 👇
March 3, 2025 at 12:32 PM
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Reality check.
Thank you, Financial Times.
February 25, 2025 at 8:19 PM
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More dodgy maths, too. "An extra 0.2% of GDP is around £6bn [i.e.] the cut to the aid budget. Yet [Starmer] trumpeted a £13 billion increase in defence spending...seems to make sense if one thinks the defence budget would otherwise have been frozen" ifs.org.uk/articles/ifs...
February 25, 2025 at 3:03 PM
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It's like how a lot of people think historians' job is to memorize historical facts!
Maps are inherently political. Whenever I tell people I'm a geographer I usually get a version of that Arrested Development bit, like "haven't we already mapped everything?". But people don't realize how much maps are part of their every day lives. And mapping is never finished.
Re: the whole Google Maps / Gulf of 🇺🇸 debacle: In my old Maps classes, we dedicated a lesson to geographic disputes + how Google Maps, responding to state demands, alters labels on opposite sites of contested borders. We used to use this Disputed Territories site, now accessible only via Wayback:
February 12, 2025 at 5:26 PM
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And here we go. Mostly a PR stunt for now, but cumulative radicalization is a thing and we have it going mainstream. Once it fully does, rolling it back would be extremely hard.
February 6, 2025 at 11:01 AM
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Myles Lewis-Skelly, by the way, is unreal.
January 15, 2025 at 10:20 PM
Restores my faith in brutalism (pun intended)
#100: Gottfried Böhm, Church of Mary, Queen of Peace, Velbert-Neviges (1966-68)
December 24, 2024 at 12:17 AM
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'Beigel Bake, Brick Lane' (2020) by Marc Gooderham
marcgooderham.co.uk
March 19, 2024 at 1:37 PM
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Just been reminded of this piece by Beth McKernan, less than six months old - and from a different era.
‘We can’t take any of this for granted’: Gaza’s fight to keep its treasures safe at home
Local archaeologists dedicate their lives to protect priceless artefacts from smugglers, Hamas and Israeli attacks in a land at history’s crossroads
www.theguardian.com
March 9, 2024 at 7:15 AM
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“The working class did not rise like the sun at an appointed time.  It was present at its own making.”
 
EP Thompson. Were he still alive he would have been 100 today.
February 3, 2024 at 8:03 PM
Looks fascinating! Straight on to my ‘read once the PhD is (finally) finished’ reading list.
My first book, Empire of Refugees: North Caucasian Muslims and the Late Ottoman State (February 2024), is available for preorder! Stanford University Press is running a 30% off sitewide sale through the end of February 2024! www.sup.org/books/title/...
February 2, 2024 at 12:06 PM
Calling all potential students! King’s College London’s MA in Government Studies launches this September.
Our MA in Government Studies will feature:
- a small cohort.
- learning from and with practitioners.
- tutorials.
- extra curricular events and activities.

🔗 t.co/miwMU48989
Government Studies
The only course of its kind to go beyond teaching theory to apply an in-depth perspective of how the British state is run, taught by those within government.
t.co
January 22, 2024 at 2:25 PM
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“Doctors in Gaza said that children, weakened by lack of food, had died from hypothermia and that several newborn babies with mothers who were undernourished had not survived for more than a few days.”

www.theguardian.com/world/2024/j...
Aid officials believe there are ‘pockets of famine’ in Gaza
UN agencies issue joint plea for entry routes to Gaza, where Israeli attacks have destroyed swaths of territory
www.theguardian.com
January 16, 2024 at 11:04 PM