Spain Was Different: Tourism Under Franco
How did Spain, Western Europe’s last dictatorship, become one of its most popular tourist destinations?
Political
Cowboy Diplomacy in the Spanish-American War
A routine Native American cattle round-up at the US-Mexico border in 1898 became an international incident.
‘The Graces’ by Breeze Barrington review
The Graces: The Extraordinary Untold Lives of Women at the Restoration Court by Breeze Barrington looks beyond the warming pan to the real Mary of Modena.
‘The Blood in Winter’ by Jonathan Healey review
In The Blood in Winter: A Nation Descends, 1642 Jonathan Healey holds Juntos and ‘jittery times’ responsible for England’s slide towards civil war.
How Important was the French Revolution?
Best of times or worst of times, how did the ‘greatest event that has happened in the history of man’ – as per Benjamin Disraeli – change the course of what followed?
Charles de Gaulle is Sentenced to Death
Court-martialled in absentia on 2 August 1940, the Vichy regime confiscated de Gaulle’s property and condemned him to death.
‘José Martí Reader: Writings on the Americas’ review
José Martí Reader: Writings on the Americas, edited by Deborah Shnookal and Mirta Muñiz, collects the works of Cuba's ‘Apostle of Independence’.
Ship Shape: British Naval Strategy After Napoleon
British military engagement in northwest Europe did not pause after Waterloo and resume in 1914. The intervening century saw fluctuations in French power – and the creation of a strategic system to control it.
‘Gods, Guns and Missionaries’ by Manu S. Pillai review
Hinduism predates colonialism by thousands of years, but in Gods, Guns and Missionaries: The Making of the Modern Hindu Identity Manu S. Pillai explains how European ideas shaped Hindutva.
The Great Destroyer: Cyrus, Babylon, and Jerusalem
The ancient world found him to have achieved greatness and thrust it upon his name, but was the destruction of Babylon Cyrus’ divinely ordained destiny?