The US Constitution as a straitjacket

The morning air was charged with anticipation as the people of New Orleans gathered before the Cabildo, the grand seat of government on the Plaza de Armas (now Jackson Square). Almost three weeks earl

Over a long career, John Hardman has specialised to great effect in teasing out, from speeches, decrees, minutes, memoranda, letters, diaries and unsent drafts, the varied moods of French political de

When General Francisco Franco died on 20 November 1975 – 39 years after the start of the brutal civil war that brought him to power – the prospect of a bloodless transition to democracy in Spain appea

“One might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb,” goes the old proverb. The meaning is simple: if you are going to be punished for a small crime, you may as well commit the bigger one. In the early

The troubled history of US-China relations