Offline: Meditations of melancholy

So here we are. An email last week: “tensions are very high…one has little control over the chaos of the moment. I'm so angry, and so sad. It's exhausting”. These feelings, I suspect, are pervasive. A fractured world order, with the dismantling of systems that have shaped and stabilised societies, has provoked a surge of uncertainty. People are apprehensive, uneasy, fearful, troubled, disturbed, tense, even distraught. One can understand why. A cruel war of attrition in Ukraine. A terrifying humanitarian catastrophe in Sudan.

Authors

Publication Details

Journal
The Lancet
Published
2026-02-01
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1016/s0140-6736(26)00296-5
Primary Topic
Health and Conflict Studies
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00
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article

Offline: Meditations of melancholy

Richard Horton
The Lancet
Health and Conflict Studies
article

Offline: Meditations of melancholy

Richard Horton
article en

Abstract

So here we are. An email last week: “tensions are very high…one has little control over the chaos of the moment. I'm so angry, and so sad. It's exhausting”. These feelings, I suspect, are pervasive. A fractured world order, with the dismantling of systems that have shaped and stabilised societies, has provoked a surge of uncertainty. People are apprehensive, uneasy, fearful, troubled, disturbed, tense, even distraught. One can understand why. A cruel war of attrition in Ukraine. A terrifying humanitarian catastrophe in Sudan.

The LancetVol. 407(10529)
Openalex Percentile: Top 60%
Health and Conflict Studies
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