In the early 1860s Sicily was incorporated into the Kingdom of Italy. Soon after, visitors to the island discovered what they believed was a criminal fraternity at work in Palermo and its environs. Th

The description of money as dirty has a long history in English literature, from Shylock’s account of usury to Martin Amis’s novel Money (1984) to Caryl Churchill’s play Serious Money (1987). Mostly t

John P. Murphy New Deal Art 336pp. Thames and Hudson. Paperback, £19.99. Seymour Fogel’s “Wealth of the Nation”, installed in 1942 in a federal building in Washington DC, depicts a group of workers en

Donald Trump is flailing, and no wonder. He was not elected to shoot nurses or raise healthcare costs for ordinary Americans while cutting taxes for billionaires. Yet the Democratic party’s elderly, w

Sai Baba, as long-term readers of FT may recall from previous coverage of the man and his miracles in these very pages (see FT276:28-29), was a fuzzy, Afro-headed, saffron-clad Indian guru with many m

There are certain senior figures in Formula 1 whose authority derives from destiny. They were always going to end up there. They grew up karting in Europe – or, more likely nowadays, studying aerodyna