Uploaded May 2025 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
In January this year, the Danish national broadcaster, DR, released a documentary called 'Greenland's White Gold' that examined the history of a cryolite mine in Greenland and the amount of money it had yielded to the Danish state. The controversy surrounding the documentary came at a time of intense scrutiny for Greenland’s relationship to Denmark, following President Trump’s comments about acquiring Greenland for the US.
IIn this film, James Meek, who visited Greenland earlier this year for the London Review of Books, looks at the debate the documentary stirred among Greenlanders as they prepared for their general election in March, and considers why Donald Trump is so obsessed with owning the island.
James Meek is a journalist, novelist and contributing editor at the London Review of Books. He was formerly Moscow bureau chief for the Guardian and won the Orwell Prize in 2015. His novel 'The People's Act of Love' was nominated for the Booker Prize.
Read the piece here: lrb.me/meekgreenlandyt
Subscriber to the LRB and get 12 issues for just £12: lrb.me/youtube
ABOUT THE LRB
The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance.
As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
In January this year, the Danish national broadcaster, DR, released a documentary called 'Greenland's White Gold' that examined the history of a cryolite mine in Greenland and the amount of money it had yielded to the Danish state. The controversy surrounding the documentary came at a time of intense scrutiny for Greenland’s relationship to Denmark, following President Trump’s comments about acquiring Greenland for the US.
IIn this film, James Meek, who visited Greenland earlier this year for the London Review of Books, looks at the debate the documentary stirred among Greenlanders as they prepared for their general election in March, and considers why Donald Trump is so obsessed with owning the island.
James Meek is a journalist, novelist and contributing editor at the London Review of Books. He was formerly Moscow bureau chief for the Guardian and won the Orwell Prize in 2015. His novel 'The People's Act of Love' was nominated for the Booker Prize.
Read the piece here: lrb.me/meekgreenlandyt
Subscriber to the LRB and get 12 issues for just £12: lrb.me/youtube
ABOUT THE LRB
The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance.
As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
