Mexico
On the road with Danny Lyon
The celebrated photojournalist describes his peripatetic youth recording revolution in Haiti, hunger and homelessness in Mexico and the civil rights movement in the US
How ever did the inbred Habsburgs control their vast empire?
For centuries, a line of mentally retarded monarchs managed extraordinary feats of engineering across the world against all odds
Fast and furious: America Fantastica, by Tim O’Brien, reviewed
As the avalanche of lies issuing from the White House morphs into the pandemic, Covid becomes in an engine of justice in this rollicking satire on Trumpworld
Bags of charm and a gripping plot: Netflix’s The Chosen One reviewed
Some years ago, Mark Millar (the creator of Kick-Ass, Kingsman, etc.) hit on yet another brilliant conceit for one of…
The ‘historic’ national dishes which turn out to be artful PR exercises
Japan’s ramen ‘tradition’ was created in 1958 to use up surplus imported flour, while Pizza Margherita’s specious royal connection helped boost Naples’s tourist trade
Mexico is no country for journalists
I’m writing this on my last day in Mexico City, having accompanied my 18-year-old daughter here for the first week…
Over the rainbow: D.H. Lawrence’s search for a new way of life
Philip Hensher describes D.H. Lawrence’s restless search of a new way of life
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://www.spectator.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/8Decfilm.jpg?w=410&h=275&crop=1)
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…
The problem with trying to resuscitate dying languages
Samantha Ellis 9 March 2024 9:00 am
Ross Perlin is determined to support the ‘last speakers’ of endangered tongues, such as Seke. But if these speakers really are the last, they are not, in any real sense, speaking