Benjamin T. Smith’s books include The Roots of Conservatism in Mexico: Catholicism, society, and politics in the Mixteca Baja, 1750-1962, 2012. His most recent book is The Dope: The real history of ...

I confessed in an earlier post that I was skipping the inauguration in Washington DC and spending a few nights in New York. (I can totally recommend the just-ending Siena exhibition at the Met, which ...

Boris Dralyuk on a compelling portrait of the Black Sea port of Odesa, past and present; Russell Williams is put in mind of the rumpled TV detective Columbo by a pacy French novel Vanessa Curtis is ...