Daniel Rey

What Hugo Chávez failed to understand about Karl Marx

9 December 2023 4:00 pm

It’s 25 years this week since Hugo Chávez – an inspiration for leftwingers like Ken Livingstone and Jeremy Corbyn –…

Next year’s US election promises a crisis

6 November 2023 8:50 pm

There’s only a year to go until the most complex and consequential US presidential election ever. Ukraine, the Middle East,…

The horror of Halloween

31 October 2023 5:00 pm

Temperate weather, perfect apples, and leaves turning yellow, red, and purple – ‘Fall’ ought to be the most charming time…

The outrageous felling of the Sycamore Gap tree

29 September 2023 4:40 pm

One August afternoon, my dad, my uncle, and I were walking along Hadrian’s Wall. It was pouring. Our shoes were…

Radio 4’s In Our Time is still the best thing on the BBC

21 September 2023 4:00 pm

For 25 years, Melvyn Bragg and his guests on Radio 4’s In Our Time have discussed most things from antimatter…

Book banning has come back to bite US conservatives

6 June 2023 4:52 pm

If you thought American book-banning couldn’t get any more ridiculous, think again. A school district in Utah, one of the…

Test cricket is being sabotaged

8 April 2023 8:00 pm

Test cricket should be in its prime. England is the most aggressive team in history, India and Australia are uncommonly…

The best of liberal thought

28 January 2023 9:00 am

Shocked by the authoritarianism of Cuba and the USSR, the Peruvian writer turned his back on communism in the 1960s, influenced by seven liberal European thinkers

A bitter sectarian divide: Young Mungo, by Douglas Stuart, reviewed

14 May 2022 9:00 am

Douglas Stuart has a rare gift. The Scottish writer, whose debut novel Shuggie Bain deservedly won the 2020 Booker Prize,…

Emperor for three years: the doomed reign of Maximilian I of Mexico

15 January 2022 9:00 am

On 8 April 1864 an Austrian archduke with a penchant for daydreaming agreed to be emperor of Mexico. As Edward…

Why England lost the Ashes

6 January 2022 2:37 am

England’s wretched performance in the Ashes – which saw the side lose three tests and so the series to Australia…

What was the point of the war in Afghanistan?

4 August 2021 7:08 am

On 7 October 2001 President George W. Bush launched Operation Enduring Freedom – the invasion of Afghanistan. The operation sought…

A death foretold: the last days of Gabriel García Márquez

31 July 2021 9:00 am

In March 2014 Gabriel García Márquez went down with a cold. The man who wrote beautifully about ageing was approaching…

Could street protests finally topple Cuba's communist regime?

14 July 2021 8:33 am

Could the growing tide of protests finally topple Cuba’s communist government? Many Cubans are certainly angry: Sunday marked the largest-ever demonstration against…

Snakes alive! Playing cricket in Latin America

19 June 2021 9:00 am

Cricket in Latin America sounds like an oxymoron. Yet in almost every country in the region willow was hitting leather…

It’s time to scrap the Best Actress Oscar award

25 April 2021 6:00 pm

If you tune in to the Oscars during the early hours of Monday morning, you’ll note – along with sickly…

How 20th-century artists rescued the Crucifixion

27 March 2021 9:00 am

Two millennia ago, in the outer reaches of the empire, the Romans performed a routine execution of a Galilean rebel.…

Born out of suffering: the inspiration of Dostoevsky’s great novels

16 January 2021 9:00 am

A death sentence, prison in Siberia, and chronic epilepsy. The death of his young children, a gambling addiction, and possible…

Playing devil’s advocate: a Mexican historian defends the Conquistadors

17 October 2020 9:00 am

Many books claim to describe junctures that changed the world but few examine ones as consequential as Conquistadores: A New…

The deserted village green: is this the end of cricket as we know it?

9 May 2020 9:00 am

Imagine an archetypal English scene and it’s likely you’re picturing somewhere rural. Despite losing fields and fields each year to…