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

“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

In the 21st century, we have moved into an era of performative covert action. Leaders such as Vladimir Putin have used the shadow of death to coerce their enemies overseas and to reinforce their warri

The Voodoo Queen

The summer of 1791 was an exceptionally busy period, even by Mozart’s habitually hardworking standards. He was, to begin with, composing a new opera, Die Zauberflöte (‘The Magic Flute’). Then, in June

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