LETTERS

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

“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

SEVEN TIMES IN EIGHT DAYS, U.S. PRESIDENT DONALD Trump promised to come to the aid of Iranian protesters if the country’s authoritarian regime began killing them in the streets. When it did—slaying th

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 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