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

“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

LETTERS

Philipp Felsch The Philosopher Habermas and us Translated by Tony Crawford 208pp. Polity. £20. Jürgen Habermas Things Needed to Get Better Conversations with Stefan Müller-Doohm and Roman Yos Translat

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

You wouldn’t guess from the cover design—three songbirds silhouetted over swatches of picturesque Englishness—but Catherine Clarke’s A History of England in 25 Poems hits one of its sweet spots with a