Mexico
Playing devil’s advocate: a Mexican historian defends the Conquistadors
Many books claim to describe junctures that changed the world but few examine ones as consequential as Conquistadores: A New…
I won’t read American Dirt – but not because the author has the wrong skin colour
Readers of The Spectator who keep up with the latest literary hissy fits could have predicted (perhaps with a groan)…
Donald Trump’s one-front trade war
At 12:01 a.m. on Monday, President Donald Trump went a long way toward defusing a potential war – not with…
Love in a time of people-trafficking: Among the Lost, by Emiliano Monge, reviewed
From the very first pages of Among the Lost, we’re engaged, and compromised. Estela and Epitafio are our main anchors,…
![Nothing much happens, yet there is so much to watch: Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma. [Photograph: Carlos Somonte/Netflix]](https://spectatorau.imgix.net/content/uploads/2018/12/8Decfilm.jpg?auto=compress,enhance,format&crop=faces,entropy,edges&fit=crop&w=410&h=275)
Nothing much happens, yet there’s so much to watch: Roma reviewed
Roma is the latest film from Alfonso Cuaron (Gravity,Y Tu Mama Tambien, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban) and…
Mass immigration has destroyed hopes of a borderless society
What kind of a president would build a wall to keep out families dreaming of a better life? It’s a…
How good a painter was Frida Kahlo?
In 2004 Mexican art historians made a sensational discovery in Frida Kahlo’s bathroom. Inside this space, sealed since the 1950s,…
The new mafias that rule the world
You may not have heard of the Maras. Or Barrio 18. Or the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, or the Zatas,…
John Irving spoilt my Christmas
This novel, John Irving’s 14th, took the sheen off my Christmas, and here are the reasons. The comments on…
The war on drugs is stupid and counter-productive
Rosalio Reta was 13 years old when recruited by a Mexican drug cartel. He was given a loyalty test —…
When Peter Phillips met E.L. James
Tours that start in Mexico have a nasty habit of repeating on one. Of all the British groups touring in…
Why is a fish like a bicycle? Pedro Friedeberg’s letters to Duncan Fallowell may provide a clue at last
Duncan Fallowell on the elusive Mexican artist and man-of-letters who has been his friend and faithful correspondent over many years — though they have never met
The Heckler: why it’s time to kill off James Bond
For fans of the franchise who remain unconvinced by Daniel Craig’s time on her majesty’s secret service, the stories leaking…
A mad menage — and menagerie - in Mexico: the life of Leonora Carrington in fictional form
Leonora Carrington is one of those jack-in-the-boxes who languish forgotten in the cultural toy cupboard and then pop up every…
The Etonian peer who became an assistant to a Mexican commie
The lefty hereditary peer has few equals as a figure of fun, in life or literature. The late Tony Benn…
In the empire stakes, the Anglo-Saxons were for long Spain’s inferiors
‘Every schoolboy knows who imprisoned Montezuma and who strangled Atahualpa.’ Macaulay, anticipating Gove, was complaining that the schoolboys by contrast…
Bye-bye Bric, hello Mint — are Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey really the new boom economies?
New year new ideas as we woke up on Monday morning to find ourselves in Lagos with Evan Davies trying…
Italo Calvino's essays, Collection of Sand, is a brainy delight
The Japanese are sometimes said to suffer from ‘outsider person shock’ (gaijin shokku) when travelling abroad. Recently in London we…
Narcoland, by Anabel Hernandez - review
It is by now surely beyond doubt that those governments committed to fighting the war on drugs — and on…
State-sponsored cultural renaissance in revolutionary Mexico
Revolution shook Mexico between 1910 and 1920, but radical political change was not mirrored in the art of the period.…
The Son, by Philipp Meyer - review
Colonel Eli McCullough, formerly known as Tiehteti, is a living legend. The first male child born in the Republic of…
