What were the origins of the ninja?

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

Exhibition of the week Samurai British Museum, London ...

ENGINEERING THE END OF MEDIEVAL WARFARE

In a prisoner-of-war camp in western Ukraine, a former miner from the east is being interviewed about how he ended up fighting for Russia. His speech is slurred and one arm paralysed: the results not

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