ENGINEERING THE END OF MEDIEVAL WARFARE

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

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

I magine you’re in Nebraska, standing on North America’s Great Plains, where the broad Platte and Missouri rivers join on their way to the mighty Mississippi. It’s 1804, and in the blistering 36°C hea

OLD FUSS & FEATHERS

This moment is surely imbued with the most global symbolism. It was when, according to the Old Norse-Icelandic sagas, adventurers sailed across the north Atlantic from settlements on the west coast of