Daniel Rey

A folding screen showing an indigenous wedding in Mexico, c. 1660-90. Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Public Domain.

‘Patria’ by Laurence Blair review

In Patria: Lost Countries of South America, Laurence Blair explores nine nations, dissolved or imagined, and what they tell us about Latin America.

A painter at work on the 4,000-building Edison – City of Light diorama at the New York World’s Fair, 1940. New York Public Library. Public Domain.

‘Liberty’s Grid’ by Amir Alexander review

Liberty’s Grid: A Founding Father, a Mathematical Dreamland, and the Shaping of America by Amir Alexander explains how the grid system put the United States on the map.

The Gospel of J. Edgar Hoover by Lerone A. Martin review

J. Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI from 1924 to 1972, thought the Bureau’s mission was to defeat the godless forces of liberalism, feminism and civil rights.

the Second Vatican Council, 1962, St Peter’s Basilica, Rome.

Broad Church

Soaring and swooping through a history of Catholicism, from 1789 to the present day.

revolutionary mural, Havana, 20th century.

Cuban Perestroika

Tracing the decline of socialism through the lives of ordinary Cubans.

Che Guevara, December 1964 © CBS Archive/Getty Images.

‘I Embrace You With All My Revolutionary Fervor: Letters 1947-1967’ by Che Guevara review

I Embrace You With All My Revolutionary Fervor: Letters 1947-1967 by Che Guevara collects the deft epistolary prose of the self-styled prophet.

Just a Book?

The story of Thomas Jefferson’s bible, his own version of the Gospels.

Meeting between Castro and Malcolm X in Harlem, 1960.

Castro’s Honeymoon

Holding court to the world in a hotel in Harlem.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer stained glass at St Johannes Basilikum, Berlin. Sludge G (CC BY-SA 2.0).

Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Modern Martyr

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was one of the earliest establishment figures to denounce the Nazi regime. In April 1945, his quiet resistance led him to the scaffold.

Escape to Mexico

Filmmakers, revolutionaries, Iranian shahs – Mexico has a long history of providing political asylum.