In January 1979, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi fled Iran with “his wife, some jewels and a clod of earth”, says author Christopher de Bellaigue in the Financial Times. A measure of how the country’s Isla

John Tolan Islam A new history from Muhammad to the present 304pp. Princeton University Press. £25 (US $29.95). James McDougall Worlds of Islam A global history 608pp. Allen Lane. £40. Elizabeth Drays

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

TODAY, THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF Iran resembles a half-lifeless body collapsed on the ground, but holding a gun. With the support of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and other military forces, it

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

“The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.” Antonio Gramsci’s words, written in prison near Bari almost 100 years ago, ring out to us now. The politi