Mob rule

Is this the age of dictators?” asked veteran journalist Sir Sidney Low. He was writing in September 1923, the month in which a military coup brought Miguel Primo de Rivera to power in Spain. At the sa

The history of Mexico is epic. There are the Maya and the Aztecs; the meeting of two continents, with Moctezuma and Cortés; a cry for independence led by a priest-turned-general; the loss of more than

Samurai rose to be global emblems of honour and courage, but their story doesn’t always match the myths they told about themselves, as a British Museum exhibition shows

BEFORE THE PEAKY BLINDERS, A ROGUES’ GALLERY OF LESSER-KNOWN CROOKS TERRORISED CITIES AND TOWNS ACROSS BRITAIN

Julián Casanova Franco 528pp. Crítica. €22.90. Giles Tremlett El Generalísimo Franco: Power, violence and the quest for greatness 528pp. Bloomsbury. £30. Juan Carlos I, with Laurence Debray Reconcilia

‘Green sickness’, also known as the ‘disease of virgins’ – a diagnosis applied mainly to teenage girls from the 16th to the 19th centuries – is one of the most puzzling conditions in the history of me