<![CDATA[EL PAÍS]]>https://english.elpais.comThu, 07 May 2026 15:15:27 +0000en1hourly1<![CDATA[Soledad Gallego-Díaz, the consummate journalist and first female editor-in-chief of EL PAÍS, dies]]>https://english.elpais.com/spain/2026-05-05/soledad-gallego-diaz-the-consummate-journalist-and-first-female-editor-in-chief-of-el-pais-dies.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/spain/2026-05-05/soledad-gallego-diaz-the-consummate-journalist-and-first-female-editor-in-chief-of-el-pais-dies.htmlTue, 05 May 2026 21:59:27 +0000Soledad Gallego-Díaz, who died this Tuesday in Madrid at the age of 75, achieved the major journalistic scoop of Spain’s democratic transition at just 26 years old: the publication in the magazine Cuadernos para el Diálogo of the draft of the Spanish Constitution of 1978, which, for reasons that now seem incomprehensible, was kept under strict secrecy. From then on, Sol, as she was known, was a force to be reckoned with in Spanish journalism: the first female editor-in-chief of EL PAÍS from June 8, 2018, to June 15, 2020; deputy editor under three different editors (Juan Luis Cebrián, Joaquín Estefanía, and Jesús Ceberio); correspondent in Brussels, London, Paris, New York, and Buenos Aires; special envoy to numerous international events, such as the end of the dissolution of the Soviet Union; political reporter; bureau chief in Seville; readers’ advocate; editorial writer; and instructor at the journalism courses taught by this newspaper in partnership with the Autonomous University of Madrid.

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]]>Samuel Sánchez<![CDATA[All democracies are perishable: Hitler’s rise to power as a warning about the present]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2026-04-08/all-democracies-are-perishable-hitlers-rise-to-power-as-a-warning-about-the-present.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2026-04-08/all-democracies-are-perishable-hitlers-rise-to-power-as-a-warning-about-the-present.htmlWed, 08 Apr 2026 16:13:17 +0000The appointment of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of Germany in January 1933 is surely the 20th century event currently being most thoroughly examined by historians, though experts are not only looking to the past, but also to a present shaken by the rise of the far right in numerous countries and, above all, by the authoritarian drift of the United States under Donald Trump. How was it possible that one of the most advanced democracies in the world at the time, the Weimar Republic, ended up destroyed? Who was responsible for bringing Hitler to power, despite him never having hidden his racist and anti-democratic intentions? Why did they do it? A question that underlies all the others is the most important: could this happen again now?

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]]>brandstaetter images / Hulton Archive / GETTY IMAGES<![CDATA[‘Welcome to the calentón’: no nation speaks and thinks in a single language]]>https://english.elpais.com/society/2026-02-11/welcome-to-the-calenton-no-nation-speaks-and-thinks-in-a-single-language.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/society/2026-02-11/welcome-to-the-calenton-no-nation-speaks-and-thinks-in-a-single-language.htmlWed, 11 Feb 2026 11:04:31 +0000“Buenas tardes, California. Mi nombre es Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio…” The Puerto Rican singer Bad Bunny’s performance last Sunday during the Super Bowl halftime show, a display of Hispanic pride and a reaffirmation of the Americas beyond borders and the Monroe Doctrine, has provoked enormous irritation in President Donald Trump and the entire MAGA movement for his use of Spanish and Boricua, the dialect of Puerto Rico. The ultraconservative Fox News network spoke of “culture clash” and “language barriers” for not singing in English. Until Trump’s second presidency, the U.S. did not have English as an official language. In real life, beyond the xenophobia, as is the case in almost every country in the world, the existence of different languages ​​enriches countries, it does not weaken them.

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]]>-<![CDATA[The return of fascism]]>https://english.elpais.com/usa/2026-01-29/the-return-of-fascism.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/usa/2026-01-29/the-return-of-fascism.htmlThu, 29 Jan 2026 10:32:57 +0000The 1920s were marked by fascism, a word that should not be used lightly. The same is true of the concept of genocide; once used, there is no turning back. “It’s an avalanche of a word: once you utter it, it just keeps growing,” said David Grossman in an interview with the Italian journalist Francesca Caferri when the Israeli writer first defined what was taking place in Gaza as genocide. Since the beginning of Donald Trump’s second presidency a year ago, but especially since the brutal deployment in Minneapolis of federal paramilitaries from ICE and the Border Patrol, the impression that fascism has taken hold in the United States has only grown among writers, commentators, historians, and citizens.

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]]>Bettmann<![CDATA[AI helps identify Nazi killer in one of the Holocaust’s most shocking photographs]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2026-01-12/ai-helps-identify-nazi-killer-in-one-of-the-holocausts-most-shocking-photographs.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2026-01-12/ai-helps-identify-nazi-killer-in-one-of-the-holocausts-most-shocking-photographs.htmlMon, 12 Jan 2026 12:41:16 +0000The image captures all the horror of the Shoah: a Nazi points a gun at a man’s head, who looks at the camera with an almost defiant expression. Other German soldiers, and even a civilian, watch the scene without showing much emotion. It is an image of absolute evil. Before the person about to be killed lies the abyss of a mass grave filled with corpses.

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]]><![CDATA[It is easier to overthrow a tyrant than to govern a leaderless country]]>https://english.elpais.com/opinion/2026-01-06/it-is-easier-to-overthrow-a-tyrant-than-to-govern-a-leaderless-country.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/opinion/2026-01-06/it-is-easier-to-overthrow-a-tyrant-than-to-govern-a-leaderless-country.htmlTue, 06 Jan 2026 12:08:31 +0000Any lingering doubts about the true motives behind the 2003 invasion of Iraq were dispelled when looters were ransacking Baghdad, carrying off millennia-old artifacts from the Iraqi capital’s archaeological museum, while U.S. troops fortified the Ministry of Oil—the only government building left untouched and from which not a single document emerged. The disastrous and illegal invasion, spearheaded by the United States with military support from the United Kingdom and moral backing from Spain, demonstrated that it is far easier to overthrow a dictator than to govern a leaderless country.

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]]>Guardian Gulf coverage<![CDATA[A marathon of Rob Reiner movies as an antidote to Trump’s authoritarianism]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2025-12-26/a-christmas-marathon-of-rob-reiner-movies-as-an-antidote-to-trumps-authoritarianism.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2025-12-26/a-christmas-marathon-of-rob-reiner-movies-as-an-antidote-to-trumps-authoritarianism.htmlFri, 26 Dec 2025 13:22:32 +0000The first time Annette Bening visits the White House in Rob Reiner’s political comedy, The American President, she tells the security guard that she feels like she’s in a Frank Capra film. The tribute to the director of It’s a Wonderful Life, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and Meet John Doe is no accident: Capra embodied the hope of New Deal America, which emerged from the Great Depression with the wounds of poverty and displacement not yet fully healed, the ghosts of the harvest bums still haunting the backroads of America. Though best known for romantic comedies like When Harry Met Sally, Reiner was also a great political filmmaker, a late 20th-century Frank Capra. Revisiting his films while Donald Trump’s blunders dominate the headlines is an experience as unsettling as it is comforting.

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]]><![CDATA[Genocide, the power of a word: A history of the crime of crimes ]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-10-03/genocide-the-power-of-a-word-a-history-of-the-crime-of-crimes.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2025-10-03/genocide-the-power-of-a-word-a-history-of-the-crime-of-crimes.htmlFri, 03 Oct 2025 11:24:37 +0000In the spring of 1994, as Hutu murderers known as the Interahamwe (those who fight together) perpetrated the genocide in Rwanda (800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed in three months), the White House decided to look the other way. “The United States did virtually nothing to try to stop it,” wrote Samantha Power in her book, A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide. Published in 2002, the impact of this essay by the American diplomat was enormous because it held up a mirror to the United States — and the world — as hundreds of thousands of people in Cambodia, Iraq, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Kosovo were murdered for their religious, national, or ethnic affiliation. The wind of realpolitik had swept away the “never again” that seemed to have settled in the international consciousness after the Second World War and the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials against the war criminals of Germany and Japan.

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]]>James Nachtwey (CONTACTO)<![CDATA[When did the Nazis lose? What was the most important battle? The unanswered questions about World War II]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-07-28/when-did-the-nazis-lose-what-was-the-most-important-battle-the-unanswered-questions-about-world-war-ii.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2025-07-28/when-did-the-nazis-lose-what-was-the-most-important-battle-the-unanswered-questions-about-world-war-ii.htmlMon, 28 Jul 2025 18:02:59 +0000As we approach the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II — on August 15, 1945, with Japan’s unconditional surrender following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki — those who fought in it are slowly disappearing. The era of eyewitnesses is about to end. On July 21, Jake Larson, one of the last veterans of the Omaha Beach landings of June 6, 1944, died at the age of 102. Larson had become a TikTok star, recounting his experiences during the invasion of Europe, reflecting how interest in the bloodiest conflict in history has never stopped growing.

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]]>ullstein bild<![CDATA[The long road of El Cid: From plundering mercenary to Francoist legend]]>https://english.elpais.com/spain/2025-06-06/the-long-road-of-el-cid-from-plundering-mercenary-to-francoist-legend.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/spain/2025-06-06/the-long-road-of-el-cid-from-plundering-mercenary-to-francoist-legend.htmlFri, 06 Jun 2025 11:24:52 +0000In the 11th century, the Spanish region known today as La Rioja was part of a vast uninhabited area of the Iberian Peninsula that served as a buffer zone between the Christian and Muslim kingdoms. It was a sparsely populated territory, fraught with danger.

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]]>ORONOZ / ALBUM<![CDATA[80th anniversary of the end of World War II: How does a country fall into the abyss of hatred? ]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-05-08/80th-anniversary-of-the-end-of-world-war-ii-how-does-a-country-fall-into-the-abyss-of-hatred.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2025-05-08/80th-anniversary-of-the-end-of-world-war-ii-how-does-a-country-fall-into-the-abyss-of-hatred.htmlThu, 08 May 2025 10:40:07 +0000The end of World War II in Europe on May 8, 1945, with the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany — although in Russia it is commemorated on May 9 — marks its 80th anniversary this Thursday. The conflict left a devastated continent in its wake where, as historian Keith Lowe explains in Savage Continent, “there was no morality, only survival.” In the still-smoking ruins of Europe, as the full extent of the Nazi extermination and concentration camps was being revealed, with millions of refugees and homeless people and millions more dead, one question loomed over all others: how could it have happened? How could it have come to this?

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]]><![CDATA[1215, 1789, 1945, 1989: The dates that forged freedom in Europe]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-05-05/1215-1789-1945-1989-the-dates-that-forged-freedom-in-europe.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2025-05-05/1215-1789-1945-1989-the-dates-that-forged-freedom-in-europe.htmlMon, 05 May 2025 16:19:08 +0000Dates are essential to guide us through the labyrinth of history; but they don’t always reflect the whole truth. For some researchers, World War II didn’t begin on September 1, 1939, nor did it end on May 8, 1945. The 80th anniversary of the end of the conflict, which is commemorated Thursday, comes at a particularly delicate time, in which many of the certainties on which the continent’s postwar history was based have been shattered.

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]]>Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisz<![CDATA[In search of the historical Jesus: More questions than answers]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2025-04-19/in-search-of-the-historical-jesus-more-questions-than-answers.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2025-04-19/in-search-of-the-historical-jesus-more-questions-than-answers.htmlSat, 19 Apr 2025 04:00:00 +0000Jesus of Nazareth, whose death in Jerusalem is commemorated by Christians during Holy Week, was a historical figure who lived and died 2,000 years ago. For millions of believers, he is also the son of God, who rose on the third day, and the founder of a religion that spread throughout the Roman Empire in a relatively short period of time. Most experts believe in the historical existence of Jesus, although there are immense gaps in the knowledge about his life. The facts are scarce, sometimes contradictory, and, in many cases, lost in the mists of legend. Some experts even consider him a literary figure shaped by the four evangelists who wrote their texts decades after his death.

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]]>Mondadori Portfolio<![CDATA[Caravaggio, tariffs, and the dream of 1950s America]]>https://english.elpais.com/usa/2025-04-09/caravaggio-tariffs-and-the-dream-of-1950s-america.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/usa/2025-04-09/caravaggio-tariffs-and-the-dream-of-1950s-america.htmlWed, 09 Apr 2025 10:52:47 +0000Reactionary thinking idealizes and falsifies a past that never really existed, but to which it seeks to return as a kind of Eden in the face of a present tarnished by horrible things, such as woke thinking, #MeToo, the investigation into slavery as one of the key moments in U.S. history, the 2030 agenda, the climate crisis, or equal rights regardless of skin color, sex, or religion. Behind the absurdity of the tariff war unleashed by Donald Trump, which could plunge the global economy and his own country into recession, lies not only a problem with the trade balance, but also nostalgia for an idealized America, stuck in the 1950s, before the hippies and the great changes of the 1960s.

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]]><![CDATA[The super spy who failed to kill Franco]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2017/03/13/inenglish/1489394826_256992.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2017/03/13/inenglish/1489394826_256992.htmlMon, 13 Mar 2017 09:43:08 +0000The reason why this mission was never accomplished remains a mystery. It has not even been established whether Philby – the so-called Third Man of the treacherous Cambridge Five ring of spies recruited by the Soviet Union – received the assignment. What is known is that Franco survived to rule Spain until his death in 1975, and that Philby went on to became one of the most successful double agents of all time and one of the most damaging moles in this history of British espionage.

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]]><![CDATA[When intellectuals cheer on fascism]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2024-12-28/when-intellectuals-cheer-on-fascism.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2024-12-28/when-intellectuals-cheer-on-fascism.htmlSat, 28 Dec 2024 04:30:00 +0000A famous photograph taken by Louis Monier in 1977 in one of the most beautiful squares in the Latin Quarter in Paris shows three great intellectuals of the 20th century whose influence continues to this day: the philosopher Emil Cioran, the historian of religions and novelist Mircea Eliade, and the playwright Eugène Ionesco. The first two had a very dark secret to hide: their sympathy for Romanian fascism in the 1930s and 1940s, their antisemitism, and their intellectual support for a regime responsible for the murder of tens of thousands of Jews. The third, the inventor of the theater of the absurd, of Jewish origin, survived the war and spent the rest of his life in France. They were very good friends in their youth, but their relationship was forever affected by Cioran and Eliade’s past.

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]]>Louis MONIER<![CDATA[Jon Lee Anderson, journalist: ‘I can’t rule out a civil war in the United States’]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2024-12-28/jon-lee-anderson-journalist-i-cant-rule-out-a-civil-war-in-the-united-states.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2024-12-28/jon-lee-anderson-journalist-i-cant-rule-out-a-civil-war-in-the-united-states.htmlSat, 28 Dec 2024 04:30:00 +0000Jon Lee Anderson, reporter for The New Yorker, author of numerous books, biographer of Che Guevara and Fidel Castro, speaks a Spanish as entertaining as it is colorful. He’s one of the journalists who best knows Latin America and maintains ties, both familiar and sentimental, with Granada, Spain, where he lived for many years. His history of coming and going across the Atlantic and the Andes has left its mark on the way he speaks the language, with a blend of sayings and accents from many countries.

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]]>Álvaro García<![CDATA[Notre Dame, the cathedral that reinvented the Middle Ages ]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2024-12-06/notre-dame-the-cathedral-that-reinvented-the-middle-ages.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2024-12-06/notre-dame-the-cathedral-that-reinvented-the-middle-ages.htmlFri, 06 Dec 2024 13:50:24 +0000Victor Hugo’s most enduring cultural legacy is not Les Misérables and Jean Valjean’s struggle to find something resembling justice in a world that shows no mercy to the poor. The 19th century French author’s most profound mark on France, and the world, is a monumental Gothic cathedral, whose spires and rose windows are as iconic as the Eiffel Tower. To a large extent, the Notre Dame, which will be reopened on Saturday after burning to the ground in 2019, is of Victor Hugo’s making.

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]]>IAN LANGSDON<![CDATA[Pompeii’s new secrets revealed: Beauty, sex and slavery]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2024-11-12/pompeiis-new-secrets-revealed-beauty-sex-and-slavery.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2024-11-12/pompeiis-new-secrets-revealed-beauty-sex-and-slavery.htmlTue, 12 Nov 2024 18:55:54 +0000One of the many inscriptions preserved in Pompeii, the Roman city buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD, announces that the nearby amphitheater at Cumae will offer “cruciarri ven(atio) et vela,” crucifixions and venatio — hunting shows, in which sometimes humans hunted animals and sometimes animals hunted humans — and canopies, indicating that the killing would be watched in comfortable shade. With its frescoes, mansions, thermal baths, restaurants, laundries, and temples, Pompeii reflects the sophistication and beauty of the Roman world, which in the southern Italian city seems strangely close to the present. But at the same time, as in graffiti number CIL IV 9983a, it also conceals a brutal world, marked by the cruelty of slavery and the violence that permeated many aspects of daily life.

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]]>Eduardo Nave<![CDATA[More mysterious than Neanderthals, the Denisovans hold the key to humanity]]>https://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2024-07-17/more-mysterious-than-neanderthals-the-denisovans-hold-the-key-to-humanity.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2024-07-17/more-mysterious-than-neanderthals-the-denisovans-hold-the-key-to-humanity.htmlWed, 17 Jul 2024 11:06:31 +0000The origin of humanity can be summarized as a long story of hybridization and migrations. The more data we have about the prehistory of our species, thanks above all to the genetic revolution led by Nobel Prize winner Svante Pääbo, the more complex the picture becomes and, at the same time, the simpler: over the millennia, the different species of Homo—to which we ourselves belong—populated the Earth in successive waves from Africa, some successful, others doomed to extinction. The study of fossil DNA has also shown that different species crossed paths on that trip and that these genetic exchanges helped bring to light the only humans that now populate the Earth: Homo sapiens, us.

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]]>Mike Kemp<![CDATA[‘Gladiator 2’: Rhinos in the arena demonstrated Rome’s power over the world]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2024-07-12/gladiator-2-rhinos-in-the-arena-demonstrated-romes-power-over-the-world.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2024-07-12/gladiator-2-rhinos-in-the-arena-demonstrated-romes-power-over-the-world.htmlFri, 12 Jul 2024 20:22:40 +0000Roman emperors moved two things over thousands of miles just to demonstrate that nothing was impossible with their power: Egyptian obelisks, which weighed tons, and exotic animals as large as elephants and as ferocious as lions or tigers, which captured in Africa or India. In the first trailer for Gladiator 2 — which was released this week, although the film does not come out until November 22 — a rhinoceros is seen in the Colosseum. This was a fairly common animal in the violent Roman games held by emperors to entertain the people, but more importantly, to demonstrate Rome’s ability to dominate the world.

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]]><![CDATA[Robert Fico, or the unpredictable consequences of assassinations in Europe]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-05-16/robert-fico-or-the-unpredictable-consequences-of-assassinations-in-europe.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2024-05-16/robert-fico-or-the-unpredictable-consequences-of-assassinations-in-europe.htmlThu, 16 May 2024 08:50:32 +0000Many horrors of the 20th century began with an assassination that had a good chance of not happening. The killing of Archduke Franz Ferdinand along with his wife Sophie in Sarajevo, on June 28, 1914, which would eventually trigger World War I, occurred after an enormous accumulation of coincidences. The France-based Bosnian writer Velibor Colic, author of a novel about the assassination, Sarajevo Omnibus, described the crime as a “chaotic vaudeville.” Would history have changed if the killings had never happened? Maybe. The historian Christopher Clark has argued that if Gavrilo Princip, the perpetrator, had failed, Franz Ferdinand, who was not a warmonger, would have tried to avoid war.

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]]>Henry Guttmann Collection<![CDATA[Nero’s Rome was not so different from today’s world: Stratospheric rents, gentrification and chaotic traffic]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2024-04-08/neros-rome-was-not-so-different-from-todays-world-stratospheric-rents-gentrification-and-chaotic-traffic.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2024-04-08/neros-rome-was-not-so-different-from-todays-world-stratospheric-rents-gentrification-and-chaotic-traffic.htmlMon, 08 Apr 2024 14:08:11 +0000In the first century A.D., Rome became the first city with a million inhabitants. Until the 19th century, when Beijing and London achieved the milestone, no other city had reached such a population. Although the temporal and human distance that separates us from classical Rome is enormous — it was an extremely violent world, with slaves and emperors — the urban problems it experienced are repeated throughout the ages. Juvenal (60-128 A.D.) had already warned in his Satires that the cost of buying a sumptuous residence in a village south of Rome was equivalent to the annual rent “of a hovel in the capital.” French historian Dimitri Tilloi-d’Ambrosi picks up this anecdote in his essay 24 heures de la vie sous Néron (originally published in French in 2022 and recently translated to Spanish), in which he describes what distances us, but also what unites us with a world ultimately not so distant: Rome during Nero’s regime.

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]]>Werner Forman<![CDATA[The boom of books with Auschwitz in the title: The publishing industry uses the Holocaust as a commercial hook]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2024-04-04/the-boom-of-books-with-auschwitz-in-the-title-the-publishing-industry-uses-the-holocaust-as-a-commercial-hook.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2024-04-04/the-boom-of-books-with-auschwitz-in-the-title-the-publishing-industry-uses-the-holocaust-as-a-commercial-hook.htmlThu, 04 Apr 2024 13:21:36 +0000In recent years the following books have arrived in bookstores around the world: The Librarian of Auschwitz (by Spanish author Antonio Iturbe, it was written respectfully and factually and published in 2012, before Auschwitz became a commercial fad); The Auschwitz Photographer; Auschwitz: A Doctor’s Eyewitness Account; The Children’s Block: A Novel Based on the True Story of an Auschwitz Survivor; The Dressmakers of Auschwitz; Auschwitz Lullaby; The Pharmacist of Auschwitz; Surviving the Angel of Death: The True Story of a Mengele Twin in Auschwitz; The Magician of Auschwitz; The Tattooist of Auschwitz (a great international success); The Violinist of Auschwitz; The Daughter of Auschwitz; The Boy Who Followed His Father into Auschwitz; The Happiest Man on Earth: The Beautiful Life of an Auschwitz Survivor; A Delayed Life: The True Story of the Librarian of Auschwitz; The Volunteer: The True Story of the Resistance Hero Who Infiltrated Auschwitz; The Girl Who Escaped from Auschwitz; Ballerina of Auschwitz… Between 2010 and 2024, there’s been a boom of books with Auschwitz in the title: this list is a selection that does not include rigorous scientific essays, such as the ones by Laurence Rees and Sybille Steinbacher, or classics by camp survivors, such as Primo Levi’s Auschwitz Trilogy.

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]]>Yad Vashem<![CDATA[The time the world changed: Paris at the beginning of the 20th century]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2024-03-22/the-time-the-world-changed-paris-at-the-beginning-of-the-20th-century.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2024-03-22/the-time-the-world-changed-paris-at-the-beginning-of-the-20th-century.htmlFri, 22 Mar 2024 23:07:42 +0000Rarely in history can you identify a time and place where the world changed. One of them was Paris in the first two decades of the 20th century, when the city experienced a revolution not only in culture and artistic creativity, but also in industry and mobility.

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]]>Gérard Blot / RMN-GP<![CDATA[The dark side of the French Resistance: four graves in the forest]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2024-03-05/the-dark-side-of-the-french-resistance-four-graves-in-the-forest.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2024-03-05/the-dark-side-of-the-french-resistance-four-graves-in-the-forest.htmlTue, 05 Mar 2024 23:05:00 +0000European history has seen significant changes in the narrative of the French Resistance’s battle against the Nazis. Charles de Gaulle, a prominent post-World War II figure, crafted a patriotic story where thousands of men and women defended France and freedom itself. The real story is about the clash between Vichy supporters and all the Nazi opponents — communists, nationalists, Jews and Spanish Republicans fighting for freedom and survival.

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]]>Print Collector<![CDATA[When the Navajos fooled John Ford]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2024-02-20/when-the-navajos-fooled-john-ford.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2024-02-20/when-the-navajos-fooled-john-ford.htmlTue, 20 Feb 2024 20:24:58 +0000At the end of his career, John Ford wanted to use Cheyenne Autumn to apologize to Native Americans for the way he had treated them in his films. Shot in 1964, it was his last western. “There are two sides to every story, but for once I wanted to show their point of view. I’ve killed more Indians than Custer, Beecher and Chivington put together,” the master explained to Peter Bogdanovich in the interview book John Ford. “Let’s face it, we’ve treated them very badly — it’s a blot on our shield. We’ve cheated and robbed, killed, murdered, massacred and everything else, but they kill one white man and, God, out come the troops.”

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]]>Sunset Boulevard<![CDATA[The Danish queen who translated Simone de Beauvoir ]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2024-01-20/the-danish-queen-who-translated-simone-de-beauvoir.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2024-01-20/the-danish-queen-who-translated-simone-de-beauvoir.htmlSat, 20 Jan 2024 15:00:51 +0000Queen Margrethe of Denmark, who has just ceded the throne to her son Frederik, translated Simone de Beauvoir’s novel, All Men Are Mortal, in the 1980s. Not many active monarchs have devoted themselves to literary translation, in this case of a French writer remembered above all for The Second Sex (1949), a book that continues to be tremendously influential and quoted. However, Beauvoir was much more than a pioneer of feminism.

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]]>Jacques Pavlovsky<![CDATA[From Spain’s post-war exodus to Ireland’s coffin ships: Migration is key to understanding European culture ]]>https://english.elpais.com/opinion/2023-12-29/from-spains-post-war-exodus-to-irelands-coffin-ships-migration-is-key-to-understanding-european-culture.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/opinion/2023-12-29/from-spains-post-war-exodus-to-irelands-coffin-ships-migration-is-key-to-understanding-european-culture.htmlFri, 29 Dec 2023 16:19:21 +0000In Europe, we are all migrants, children of migrants or relatives of migrants. We all know someone who has had to move to make a living. Now, the rising far-right, with the support of opportunistic politicians such as France’s Emmanuel Macron and Britain’s Rishi Sunak — both willing to sell their souls to the devil as if they were unaware that Faustian pacts destroy the signatory — is pointing to migration as the source of all the continent’s problems as if we were suffering some kind of invasion. Without immigrants, the European economy would be in the doldrums, as would that of the U.S. Currently we are watching desperate people fleeing poverty, war and climate change — problems for which the West is undoubtedly responsible — as millions of Europeans have done before them.

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]]>FPG<![CDATA[Albert Camus and Gaza: ‘Even in destruction there is an order, and there are limits’]]>https://english.elpais.com/opinion/2023-12-13/albert-camus-and-gaza-even-in-destruction-there-is-an-order-and-there-are-limits.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/opinion/2023-12-13/albert-camus-and-gaza-even-in-destruction-there-is-an-order-and-there-are-limits.htmlWed, 13 Dec 2023 17:59:19 +0000Albert Camus, the 1957 Nobel Prize winner in Literature and one of the writers of the 20th century who has left the deepest mark on the 21st, premiered The Just Assassins in 1949. Inspired by real events, the play tells the story of a group of terrorists who want to attack the Russian Grand Duke. Two of them, the idealists Dora and Kaliayev, are in love, but willing to give up everything— their love, their life— for a higher cause: the hope of bringing freedom and justice to the Russian people. But the French playwright and novelist knew how to introduce in one short text all the contradictions and dilemmas of political violence, even when one is defending a just cause.

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]]>Rue des Archives<![CDATA[Jean-Jacques Hublin, paleoanthropologist: ‘Evolution is the story of a great extinction’ ]]>https://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2023-11-26/jean-jacques-hublin-paleoanthropologist-evolution-is-the-story-of-a-great-extinction.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2023-11-26/jean-jacques-hublin-paleoanthropologist-evolution-is-the-story-of-a-great-extinction.htmlSun, 26 Nov 2023 20:08:32 +0000Rarely does a discovery change the history of humanity, as well as the image that human beings have of themselves. Alongside a team of Moroccan archeologists, the French paleoanthropologist Jean-Jacques Hublin, born 61 years ago in Algeria, discovered fossils belonging to Homo sapiens (the same species that we belong to) in Jebel Irhoud, Morocco. The fact that these remains — which are more than 300,000 years old, some of the oldest that have been found to date — were discovered in North Africa is a bit unexpected, given that it’s been indicated that the birth of our species took place in the south of the African continent.

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]]>Léa Crespi<![CDATA[Pompeii, a never-ending journey of discovery]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-10-16/pompeii-a-never-ending-journey-of-discovery.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-10-16/pompeii-a-never-ending-journey-of-discovery.htmlMon, 16 Oct 2023 19:52:42 +0000Mary Beard, author of numerous books about the Roman world, says that visiting Pompeii is akin to time travel. The city buried by Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, unlike any other Roman antiquity site, allows us to connect with people who lived and died 2,000 years ago. We get a glimpse into their daily lives, from their houses and bakeries to their streets and bathrooms. Moreover, the site offers an immense variety of archaeological remains, and two-thirds of it have yet to be excavated. The National Archaeological Museum of Naples has just as many artifacts from Pompeii in storage as it has on display. The stored items are equally remarkable, just not currently on exhibit. It’s like Madrid’s Prado Museum having a vault full of Velázquez and Goya paintings as impressive as the ones hanging on its walls. Every month, Pompeii offers a fresh assortment of treasures – paintings, political graffiti, slave quarters, a fast food joint and yet another trove of human remains. Pompeii not only provides valuable insights into daily life in ancient Roma, but it has also significantly influenced our understanding of antiquity. It’s like that scene in the movie Poltergeist where a parapsychologist says she began believing in ghosts after seeing inanimate objects inexplicably moving before her eyes. Pompeii offers a similar experience, immersing us in the vibrant world of ancient Rome and taking us on a unique and never-ending journey of discovery.

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]]>Luigi Spina (Parque Arqueológico de Pompeya / La Fábrica)<![CDATA[To visit authentic dictatorships, travel back in time]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-11-22/to-visit-authentic-dictatorships-travel-back-in-time.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-11-22/to-visit-authentic-dictatorships-travel-back-in-time.htmlWed, 22 Nov 2023 15:32:02 +0000Twilight Zone: The Movie was an episodic film that, in 1983, brought together the directors who changed commercial cinema in the 1970s and 1980s: Steven Spielberg, John Landis, George Miller and Joe Dante. The first story, directed by Landis, was titled Time Out and narrated the tale of a racist and anti-Semitic man who, without further explanation, travels back in time and finds himself persecuted by the SS as a Jew in Vichy France, and then transformed into a Black man about to be lynched by the Ku Klux Klan. He ends up on a cattle train heading east in an unknown direction. I would not want those who believe that we live in a dictatorship or who shout racist and fascist slogans to be subjected to a similar lesson, but it wouldn’t hurt them to look back a little either.

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]]>Régis BOSSU<![CDATA[Israel’s lessons in Lebanon: Two invasions failed to defeat Hezbollah and Palestinian militias]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-31/israels-lessons-in-lebanon-two-invasions-failed-to-defeat-hezbollah-and-palestinian-militias.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-31/israels-lessons-in-lebanon-two-invasions-failed-to-defeat-hezbollah-and-palestinian-militias.htmlTue, 31 Oct 2023 12:04:34 +0000Israeli troops began to withdraw from southern Lebanon on August 14, 2006, after a month of fighting Shiite Hezbollah guerrillas and heavy bombing, during which the Israeli Air Force destroyed entire neighborhoods in southern Beirut — which the inhabitants had fled with little more than the clothes on their backs in just a few hours — as well as infrastructure throughout the country. It was the second time that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had entered Lebanon. On the first occasion, in 1982, it laid siege to Beirut to dislodge Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) militiamen. In both cases, the Israeli army won the battle, but not the war. “Ariel Sharon’s calculations proved wrong,” writes journalist Xavier Baron in his classic book Les Palestiniens. Genèse d’une nation (The Palestinians. Genesis of a nation). “The defeat of the PLO in Beirut did not make the idea of a Palestinian state disappear.”

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]]>ATEF SAFADI<![CDATA[They should leave the Holocaust alone]]>https://english.elpais.com/opinion/2023-10-25/they-should-leave-the-holocaust-alone.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/opinion/2023-10-25/they-should-leave-the-holocaust-alone.htmlWed, 25 Oct 2023 10:21:26 +0000The Jewish philosopher Leo Strauss coined the idea that when someone draws a comparison to Hitler in an argument, it means they have already lost it. Since the Hamas terrorist attack against Israel and the response with massive bombings against Gaza, comparisons have multiplied. During the visit of French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that “Hamas are the new Nazis.” He also maintained that Israeli children had to “hide in attics like Anne Frank.” Previously, he had compared the crimes of the Palestinian Islamist militia with Babi Yar, the extermination of the Jews of Kyiv by the Nazis, who murdered 33,771 people in a ravine near the Ukrainian capital on September 29 and 30, 1941.

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]]>MOHAMMED SALEM<![CDATA[Australian Indigenous Voice referendum: Denial of the horrors of colonization buries the injustices of the past and of the present]]>https://english.elpais.com/opinion/2023-09-20/australian-indigenous-voice-referendum-denial-of-the-horrors-of-colonization-buries-the-injustices-of-the-past-and-of-the-present.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/opinion/2023-09-20/australian-indigenous-voice-referendum-denial-of-the-horrors-of-colonization-buries-the-injustices-of-the-past-and-of-the-present.htmlWed, 20 Sep 2023 14:53:22 +0000The journey of Homo sapiens to Australia at least 50,000 years ago remains one of the great mysteries of mankind. Why did our ancestors reach the immense island continent earlier than they did Europe, which is much closer to Africa? How did they navigate the vast oceans? What kind of boats did they use? Bill Bryson summarized this unsolvable problem in his hilarious travel book Down Under: “One of the most momentous events in the history of mankind took place at a time we can only imagine and by means that are hard to believe. I refer, evidently, to the appearance of man in Australia.”

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]]>Grant Faint<![CDATA[What if all the history books are wrong and World War II started before or after 1939?]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-09-11/what-if-all-the-history-books-are-wrong-and-world-war-ii-started-before-or-after-1939.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-09-11/what-if-all-the-history-books-are-wrong-and-world-war-ii-started-before-or-after-1939.htmlMon, 11 Sep 2023 14:31:57 +0000Tens of thousands of books have been written about World War II. Every battle has been analyzed, from the battles on the front to actions behind enemy lines, the generals and the political leaders, the resistance and collaborators, not to mention the Holocaust. However, little research has been done whose ambition, in a single volume, has been to cover of the most decisive and catastrophic events not only of the 20th century, but in all of recorded history. Two of the most significant, The Second World War, by the British historian Antony Beevor, and Histoire totale de la Seconde Guerre Mondiale, by the French historian Olivier Wieviorka, which has just been published in France. While different in their approaches, they agree on one crucial point: the conflict did not begin in 1939.

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]]>Fox Photos<![CDATA[Herculaneum, the Roman city destroyed by Vesuvius that still hides its mysteries ]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-07-31/herculaneum-the-roman-city-destroyed-by-vesuvius-that-still-hides-its-mysteries.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-07-31/herculaneum-the-roman-city-destroyed-by-vesuvius-that-still-hides-its-mysteries.htmlMon, 31 Jul 2023 14:01:49 +0000For centuries, archaeologists faced a mystery when excavating the ruins of Herculaneum, one of the cities destroyed by the catastrophic eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79: why were there no human remains? No one knew where the dead were. In Pompeii, they had been found from the start. Only in the 1980s did researchers find them: about 300 people had taken refuge in warehouses near the sea but, while waiting for help that never came, they were burned by a surge of gas at 550 degrees Celsius (1022 degrees Fahrenheit) expelled by the volcano. In fact, it is the largest concentration of skeletons of antiquity that has survived to the present. Their bodies turned to vapor and, as a stunning May 1984 National Geographic cover showed, only their jewelry and metal objects withstood the lethal thermal shock. Most of the victims of Pompeii, on the other hand, died due to the pyroclastic flow that hit them and were then buried under calcified ash.

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]]>Bildagentur-online<![CDATA[The St. Bartholomew’s Massacre: The apotheosis of violence in the Wars of Religion in France]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-07-27/the-st-bartholomews-massacre-the-apotheosis-of-violence-in-the-wars-of-religion-in-france.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-07-27/the-st-bartholomews-massacre-the-apotheosis-of-violence-in-the-wars-of-religion-in-france.htmlThu, 27 Jul 2023 16:44:08 +0000The 16th century was the era of the Renaissance and the great discoveries, which broadened humanity’s horizons and knowledge. But it was also one of the most violent and terrible times in the history of Europe, marked by the wars of religion and identified above all with the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. On the night of August 23-24, 1572, a massacre of Huguenots (as Protestants were known in France) began in Paris. The event then unleashed a summer of horror in numerous French cities. Ten thousand Protestants were killed in a very short period. It is an episode immortalized many times in fiction – by Marlowe, in The Massacre at Paris; Heinrich Mann, in The Novel of Henry IV, and especially by Alexandre Dumas in Queen Margot — and that historians continue to investigate in search of an answer to explain such an outburst of hatred.

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]]>Xavier SCHWEBEL <![CDATA[Andrew Wylie, ‘The Jackal’ of books: ‘Amazon is like ISIS; it takes no prisoners’ ]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2022-10-22/andrew-wylie-the-jackal-of-books-amazon-is-like-isis-it-takes-no-prisoners.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2022-10-22/andrew-wylie-the-jackal-of-books-amazon-is-like-isis-it-takes-no-prisoners.htmlSat, 22 Oct 2022 18:28:43 +0000Among the literary giants included under the letter B on Andrew Wylie’s endless client list are Giorgio Bassani, Jorge Luis Borges, Saul Bellow, Paul and Jane Bowles, Joseph Brodsky, William Burroughs and Roberto Bolaño, eight of the 20th century’s most important writers. Under C, one finds Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Italo Calvino and Albert Camus. Andrew Wylie, 74, is the world’s most powerful literary agent. His agency has offices in New York and London, and they employ 50 people. His reputation for ruthlessness in managing his clients’ rights has earned him a nickname in the publishing industry: the Jackal. However, he maintains that his goal is to defend authors whose books are of high literary quality but don’t often sell many copies. He asks the new agents he hires to prioritize the emotions that a book arouses in them, not how well they think it might sell.

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]]>LISBETH SALAS<![CDATA[Racism unmasked: The lessons of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-07-06/racism-unmasked-the-lessons-of-to-kill-a-mockingbird.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-07-06/racism-unmasked-the-lessons-of-to-kill-a-mockingbird.htmlThu, 06 Jul 2023 18:44:30 +0000A woman’s murder during a robbery in Madrid’s Tirso de Molina public square, and the uprising in French banlieues after a young man was killed by French police during a traffic stop, have unleashed a new wave of racist outbursts from far-right extremists like the Vox Party in Spain and the media outlets that champion their cause throughout Europe and the United States. It’s not surprising that the ultra-right holds racist beliefs – it’s a fundamental part of their ideology. What is truly remarkable is their unabashedly open and unambiguous expression of these opinions.

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]]><![CDATA[The return of the mammoths: The giants of the Ice Age reappear to serve as a warning for the future ]]>https://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2023-05-15/the-return-of-the-mammoths-the-giants-of-the-ice-age-reappear-to-serve-as-a-warning-for-the-future.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2023-05-15/the-return-of-the-mammoths-the-giants-of-the-ice-age-reappear-to-serve-as-a-warning-for-the-future.htmlMon, 15 May 2023 18:53:01 +0000Prehistory represents the epoch of finality. It was the last period of coexistence of different species of human beings, and of the eight, we, the Homo sapiens, are the only ones to have survived. It was also the point when most of the planet’s inhabitants abandoned nomadism, hunting and foraging as a way of life, to devote themselves to agriculture, cattle raising and the building of cities. This was precisely when kings and priests began to emerge. It also marked the end of a long glaciation and a sweeping change in climate. At that time, as now, many people saw how the places they knew and that had permitted them to survive for generations were gradually flooded and submerged under the waves while the deserts expanded. Many species of animals became extinct, which is also the case today.

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]]><![CDATA[The odyssey of restoring the most famous Roman mosaic in the world: Seven tons, two million pieces and a 2,000-year-old mortar ]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-05-31/the-odyssey-of-restoring-the-most-famous-roman-mosaic-in-the-world-seven-tons-two-million-pieces-and-a-2000-year-old-mortar.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-05-31/the-odyssey-of-restoring-the-most-famous-roman-mosaic-in-the-world-seven-tons-two-million-pieces-and-a-2000-year-old-mortar.htmlWed, 31 May 2023 15:41:38 +0000The experts at the National Archeological Museum of Naples (MANN) wonder how long a 2,000-year-old Roman mortar can hold together. It was created all those years ago to join the two million pieces of the most famous mosaic of the ancient world, which weighs seven tons and shows Alexander the Great confronting the Persian king Darius III. Archaeologists are about to find out: starting this week, they are embarking on one of the most complex and difficult restoration processes in memory. It will take them at least a year.

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]]><![CDATA[Fox’s unending web of lies ]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-04-27/foxs-unending-web-of-lies.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-04-27/foxs-unending-web-of-lies.htmlThu, 27 Apr 2023 19:57:36 +0000The Supreme Court has shaped social, political and civil life for Americans, more so than any other institution. It has weighed in on the death penalty (first against, then for) - and on abortion (first for, then against). However, one issue for which its rulings have always followed the same direction is freedom of the press. This is due to the First Amendment, which states that “Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press”. Even highly conservative panels of judges have been compelled to exercise tolerance in this domain.

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]]><![CDATA[The unhealed wounds of the Bosnian War: ‘Nothing prepared me to look at a mass grave’]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-04-14/the-unhealed-wounds-of-the-bosnian-war-nothing-prepared-me-to-look-at-a-mass-grave.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-04-14/the-unhealed-wounds-of-the-bosnian-war-nothing-prepared-me-to-look-at-a-mass-grave.htmlFri, 14 Apr 2023 11:08:15 +0000A truck can tell the story of a genocide. In the 2018 film The Load, directed by Ognjen Glavonic, a driver transports mysterious merchandise between Kosovo and Belgrade during the NATO bombings of 1999. The viewer eventually discovers that the cargo consists of the bodies of Albanians — the victims of ethnic cleansing at the hands of Serb paramilitaries. They were moved from one place to another, so as to not leave traces of mass murder.

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]]><![CDATA[From ‘Yellowstone’ to ‘Reservation Dogs’: How the West was won back by Native Americans in US television shows]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-04-11/from-yellowstone-to-reservation-dogs-how-the-west-was-won-back-by-native-americans-in-us-television-shows.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-04-11/from-yellowstone-to-reservation-dogs-how-the-west-was-won-back-by-native-americans-in-us-television-shows.htmlTue, 11 Apr 2023 12:53:56 +0000In 1786, 10 years after the United States Declaration of Independence, when the Constitution had still yet to be enshrined, the first Indian reservation was created. It was the beginning of what would turn into a long series of wars, massacres, betrayals and lies, which became considerably more pronounced as the early pioneers spread westward. Native Americans being penned in on almost always arid, unproductive terrain and far from their ancestral lands, was one of the many faces of the gradual annihilation of America’s Indian tribes.

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]]><![CDATA[The enigma of the Lascaux Bird Man: The erection that embodies the mysteries of prehistoric art]]>https://english.elpais.com/opinion/2023-03-30/the-enigma-of-the-lascaux-bird-man-the-erection-that-embodies-the-mysteries-of-prehistoric-art.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/opinion/2023-03-30/the-enigma-of-the-lascaux-bird-man-the-erection-that-embodies-the-mysteries-of-prehistoric-art.htmlThu, 30 Mar 2023 15:01:15 +0000During World War II in France, in 1940, a dog named Robot changed the narrative of prehistory and, therefore, of humanity. The animal entered a cavity and was followed by four teenagers—one of them a young Jew who had fled to the unoccupied zone after the Nazi invasion. Inside they discovered the impressive group of cave paintings of Lascaux, and among these, the strangest, most disturbing and bewildering scene of prehistoric art.

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]]><![CDATA[How Halloween came to push out All Hallows’ Eve]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/10/29/inenglish/1446128483_753728.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/10/29/inenglish/1446128483_753728.htmlFri, 30 Oct 2015 07:39:11 +0000In Spain, Halloween continues to make inroads despite irritation from the Catholic Church and some sectors of society, who view it as too commercial and American. This year, a Cádiz church official called it “a satanic celebration that features monsters.”

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]]><![CDATA[15-M: how Spain’s ‘outraged’ movement spawned political change]]>https://english.elpais.com/society/2022-05-02/15-m-how-spains-outraged-movement-spawned-political-change.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/society/2022-05-02/15-m-how-spains-outraged-movement-spawned-political-change.htmlFri, 14 May 2021 10:26:22 +0000Ten years ago, on May 15, 2011, the online rallying cry for a demonstration by a grassroots movement called Real Democracy Now was an unexpected triumph that turned Madrid’s central Puerta del Sol square into a protest camp. Out of it came a political movement known in Spanish as 15-M, named after May 15, and sometimes also referred to as the movement of the indignados or the outraged. This movement catalyzed much of the discontent caused by the 2008 global financial crisis and became the launching pad for the left-leaning political party Podemos.

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]]>LUCA PIERGIOVANNI<![CDATA[A race against destruction: In search of Afghanistan’s lost civilizations]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-02-01/a-race-against-destruction-in-search-of-afghanistans-lost-civilizations.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-02-01/a-race-against-destruction-in-search-of-afghanistans-lost-civilizations.htmlWed, 01 Feb 2023 18:27:12 +0000Afghanistan is a land where cultures and civilizations have always intersected. For centuries, the territory has been disputed by different empires and torn apart through endless wars.

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]]>MUSÉE GUIMET <![CDATA[Jan Morris: The writer who discovered she ‘was born in the wrong body’]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-01-19/jan-morris-the-writer-who-discovered-she-was-born-in-the-wrong-body.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-01-19/jan-morris-the-writer-who-discovered-she-was-born-in-the-wrong-body.htmlThu, 19 Jan 2023 12:01:23 +0000“I was three or perhaps four years old when I realized that I had been born into the wrong body, and should really be a girl.” That’s how Jan Morris, one of the great writers of the 20th century, begins her autobiography Conundrum. Morris, who is best-known for her travel literature on Venice and Trieste, published the autobiography in 1974, well before trans rights were part of mainstream discussion.

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]]><![CDATA[Could a 1933 novel about Nazism provide a cautionary tale about totalitarianism in 2022?]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2022-11-05/could-a-1933-novel-about-nazism-provide-a-cautionary-tale-about-totalitarianism-in-2022.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2022-11-05/could-a-1933-novel-about-nazism-provide-a-cautionary-tale-about-totalitarianism-in-2022.htmlSat, 05 Nov 2022 03:20:26 +0000Lion Feuchtwanger was one of the many Germans who saw their world fall apart with the rise of Nazism and Hitler. Feuchtwanger was a well-known pacificist who gained broader fame for his 1925 novel, Jud Süß (The Jew Seuss, in English), a virulent denunciation of anti-Semitism. Intelligent and free-thinking, Feuchtwanger was Jewish, leftist and anti-military – everything the Nazis hated. In 1933, he undertook a long and dangerous trip into exile and initially settled in the south of France. When the Germans invaded in 1940, he fled once again, this time to California. There he met Bertolt Brecht and Thomas Mann, like-minded German exiles who had also settled in Los Angeles.

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]]>Bettmann<![CDATA[Feed them to the lions! How Ancient Rome demonstrated its brutality and power ]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2022-09-18/feed-them-to-the-lions-how-ancient-rome-demonstrated-its-brutality-and-power.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2022-09-18/feed-them-to-the-lions-how-ancient-rome-demonstrated-its-brutality-and-power.htmlSun, 18 Sep 2022 19:16:42 +0000Rome was the first European civilization fascinated by wild and exotic animals. These creatures became symbols of power and weapons of war, used to inflict merciless punishments against criminals or dissidents. “To the lions” was the favorite phrase of Julius Caesar in the comic book series Asterix and Obelix, just to demonstrate how widespread the phenomenon was.

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]]><![CDATA[Ian Kershaw, Hitler’s biographer: ‘There are differences in the nature of terror’]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2022-09-28/ian-kershaw-hitlers-biographer-there-are-differences-in-the-nature-of-terror.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2022-09-28/ian-kershaw-hitlers-biographer-there-are-differences-in-the-nature-of-terror.htmlWed, 28 Sep 2022 04:15:03 +0000Ian Kershaw is one of the greatest European historians. He is best known for his biography of Adolf Hitler – considered the canonical work on the Nazi dictator – but he is also the author of a two-volume history of Europe: Descent into Hell and Rise and Crisis, documenting the outbreak of World War I until 2017.

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]]><![CDATA[Massacring Christians: A stain on the legacy of Marcus Aurelius as Rome’s ‘enlightened emperor’ ]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2022-08-20/massacring-christians-a-stain-on-the-legacy-of-marcus-aurelius-as-romes-enlightened-emperor.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2022-08-20/massacring-christians-a-stain-on-the-legacy-of-marcus-aurelius-as-romes-enlightened-emperor.htmlSat, 20 Aug 2022 21:54:23 +0000More than any Roman emperor, Marcus Aurelius (121-180) evokes the archetype of a wise and virtuous ruler – skilled in the art of fair judgment, a serious and sensible politician, a man who went to war courageously but reluctantly, and always for the good of the Empire. Aurelius’ writings on stoic philosophy, collected in the book Meditations, is still printed and sold to this day. The work’s Spanish translation, to cite just one example, is available in no less than eight different editions (not counting a manga version). But the life of kings and saints is not often as rosy as popular history remembers it. Under the reign of Marcus Aurelius, one of the most brutal and well-documented campaigns of state terror and religious persecution was carried out against the empire’s Christian subjects: the famous martyrs of Lyon, who were tortured and devoured by wild beasts in 177, to the delight of audiences that never tired of calling for blood.

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]]><![CDATA[‘Cacator cave malum’: what collective latrines teach us about ancient Rome]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2022-08-05/cacator-cave-malum-what-collective-latrines-teach-us-about-ancient-rome.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2022-08-05/cacator-cave-malum-what-collective-latrines-teach-us-about-ancient-rome.htmlFri, 05 Aug 2022 15:04:05 +0000“I love this place,” exclaims the English scholar Mary Beard in How the Romans lived, one of her historical documentaries for the BBC. The monument she is referring to is a public latrine.

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]]><![CDATA[Time is running out for Holocaust survivors]]>https://english.elpais.com/society/2022-07-03/time-is-running-out-for-holocaust-survivors.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/society/2022-07-03/time-is-running-out-for-holocaust-survivors.htmlSun, 03 Jul 2022 02:49:59 +0000Shimon Redlich, an 87-year-old Holocaust survivor and author of the book Together and Apart in Brzezany, said: “As long as the survivors are alive and can remember, their testimonies must be recorded. Every story is unique.”

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]]><![CDATA[Hitler’s jaw in a cigar box: Why Victory Day ended one war and started another]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2022-05-09/hitlers-jaw-in-a-cigar-box-why-victory-day-ended-one-war-and-started-another.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2022-05-09/hitlers-jaw-in-a-cigar-box-why-victory-day-ended-one-war-and-started-another.htmlMon, 09 May 2022 10:15:41 +0000General Alfred Jodl, who would end up being convicted at Nuremberg and executed in 1946, signed the unconditional surrender of Germany to the Allies in the French city of Rheims in the early hours of May 7, 1945. It would take effect at 11.01 pm on May 8. At that time, World War II officially ended in Europe; in Asia, Japan did not surrender until August. But the Cold War had already begun. The lack of trust among the countries that had defeated Nazism was already very high at that time, so much so that they could not even agree on the moment in which the end of the war should be celebrated. In fact, Stalin demanded that a second surrender be signed in Berlin before Soviet Marshal Georgy Zhukov, which did not take effect until May 9. That is why Russia commemorates its victory in the so-called Great Patriotic War on Monday, while the rest of the allied countries celebrated it on Sunday.

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]]><![CDATA[Baldness was funny, blindness was not: Mary Beard unveils humor in Ancient Rome]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2022-04-05/baldness-was-funny-blindness-was-not-mary-beard-unveils-humor-in-ancient-rome.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2022-04-05/baldness-was-funny-blindness-was-not-mary-beard-unveils-humor-in-ancient-rome.htmlTue, 05 Apr 2022 12:45:48 +0000The cast of Monty Python made it very clear in their movie Life of Brian what the Romans had done for us. “The sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a freshwater system, and public health.” Mary Beard, professor of classics at the University of Cambridge, adds one more thing: humor and jokes. In her book, Laughter in Ancient Rome: On Joking, Tickling, and Cracking Up, Beard tries to explain what the Romans laughed about and explores whether we have inherited their sense of humor. She also considers whether jokes can be a way to understand the society of ancient Rome.

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]]><![CDATA[History’s lessons for the Ukraine-Russia conflict: How do wars get started?]]>https://english.elpais.com/usa/2022-01-28/historys-lessons-for-the-ukraine-russia-conflict-how-do-wars-get-started.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/usa/2022-01-28/historys-lessons-for-the-ukraine-russia-conflict-how-do-wars-get-started.htmlFri, 28 Jan 2022 16:58:27 +0000In Rob Reiners’ 1987 classic film, The Princess Bride, the character of Vizzini, a ruthless Sicilian spy, states: “Starting a war is a prestigious line of work, with a long and glorious tradition.” When it comes to the story of Russia and Ukraine in 2022, far from being a fairytale conflict between the imaginary kingdoms of Florin and Guilder, the threat of an attack by the military and energy giant Russia against the sovereign state of Ukraine is very real.

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]]>AFP<![CDATA[Plagues, famine, torture: historians try to set the record straight on the Middle Ages]]>https://english.elpais.com/usa/2021-07-19/plagues-famine-torture-historians-try-to-set-the-record-straight-on-the-middle-ages.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/usa/2021-07-19/plagues-famine-torture-historians-try-to-set-the-record-straight-on-the-middle-ages.htmlMon, 19 Jul 2021 16:08:38 +0000Rotten teeth, famines, plagues, routine torture, bodies hanging outside cities to “greet” visitors, feudal lords exercising their droit du seigneur to sleep with young women on the latters’ wedding night...it’s hard to deny that the Middle Ages have had some really bad press.

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]]>Historical Picture Archive / CORBIS/ Getty<![CDATA[Neanderthals: How close are we to our extinct relatives?]]>https://english.elpais.com/usa/2021-03-20/neanderthals-how-close-are-we-to-our-extinct-relatives.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/usa/2021-03-20/neanderthals-how-close-are-we-to-our-extinct-relatives.htmlSat, 20 Mar 2021 10:53:13 +0000The known differences between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals appear to grow ever slighter. As scientists prove that we have more in common with those once considered distant cousins of humankind, new writing on the topic has exploded. The deluge of scientific papers, revelatory books and exhibitions focuses on dismantling preconceptions of Neanderthals, who lived in Asia and Europe for at least 300,000 years.

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]]>Michael Johansen<![CDATA[Living to tell the tale of Covid-19]]>https://english.elpais.com/society/2020-12-04/living-to-tell-the-tale-of-covid-19.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/society/2020-12-04/living-to-tell-the-tale-of-covid-19.htmlFri, 04 Dec 2020 14:26:46 +0000My brother Juan’s last memory before entering an induced coma is of being in the emergency ward, surrounded by nervous doctors. He was asked for the contact number of a close relative, and he still had the strength and recall to give them the that of his wife Pilar. While the health workers explained that they were going to have to sedate him, he could hear voices in the background saying, “Quick! Quick! He’s slipping away!” At that moment, his heartbeat was not strong enough to keep him alive – it was beating at less than 10% of its capacity compared to the 60% to 70% of a healthy heart; the doctors did not understand what was happening. Until then, they had not seen heart failure in a Covid-19 patient. It was April 4, and Spain was at a critical point of the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic and the hospitals, including the Fundación Jiménez Díaz in the Madrid district of Moncloa, were near full capacity.

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]]>Eulogio Martín Castellanos<![CDATA[Why the Middle Ages have become incredibly relevant]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2019/08/01/inenglish/1564673082_675360.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2019/08/01/inenglish/1564673082_675360.htmlThu, 01 Aug 2019 15:44:14 +0000The Middle Ages have become a subject of intense political debate. Not the entire period, of course – nobody is arguing over Excalibur or the Knights of the Round Table. What’s on the debate table is the era of the Muslim invasions, a time of intense political change in a Europe whose borders were being defined.

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]]><![CDATA[What is the real power of the far right in Spain?]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2019/05/02/inenglish/1556783215_281399.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2019/05/02/inenglish/1556783215_281399.htmlThu, 02 May 2019 09:09:58 +0000The emergence of far-right parties in European parliaments has become a democratic routine, and Spain joined the trend on Sunday, when Vox earned 24 seats in Congress on the back of 2.6 million votes (10.26% of the total).

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]]>Luis Sevillano<![CDATA[Notre-Dame de Paris: where all the paths in France converge]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2019/04/16/inenglish/1555398545_644072.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2019/04/16/inenglish/1555398545_644072.htmlTue, 16 Apr 2019 09:16:49 +0000During the Paris Commune, in 1871, when the revolutionaries knew themselves to be defeated, they began torching all the public buildings in their path, with a special preference for churches. Yet Notre-Dame, the cathedral that occupies the geographical center of the French capital, was spared from the popular fury (a few pews burned down, but the fire went out without doing much damage), just like it had managed to survive the iconoclasm of the French Revolution a century earlier. Construction on the building began in the 12th century, with the Gothic style in full swing, and ended in the 1800s, and the cathedral became one of the most powerful symbols not just of France, but of Europe itself.

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]]>Frédéric Soltan<![CDATA[The limits of genocide]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2019/03/29/inenglish/1553874259_530581.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2019/03/29/inenglish/1553874259_530581.htmlFri, 29 Mar 2019 16:29:06 +0000The definitive verdict against the political leader of the Bosnian Serbs, Radovan Karadžić, provides an anatomy of the atrocities that were committed during the conflict that ravaged the former Yugoslav republic between 1992 and 1995. But José Ricardo de Prada, the Spanish judge who sat on the panel at the appeals court, feels that the verdict fell short in one fundamental aspect: genocide. And it is for this reason that he entered a dissenting opinion.

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]]>ELVIS BARUKCIC<![CDATA[Hate campaign strikes major Auschwitz exhibition in Madrid]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2017/11/16/inenglish/1510832744_414338.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2017/11/16/inenglish/1510832744_414338.htmlMon, 20 Nov 2017 08:00:25 +0000The most elaborate traveling exhibition about the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz ever put together has been subject to an onslaught of anti-Semitic sentiment after the Spanish company Musealia advertised its inauguration on December 1, at the Canal Art Center in Madrid.

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]]>Álvaro García<![CDATA[Spanish scientists use cutting-edge technology to uncover cave paintings]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2017/09/12/inenglish/1505214997_861972.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2017/09/12/inenglish/1505214997_861972.htmlThu, 14 Sep 2017 06:40:12 +0000Led by researcher Roberto Ontañón the team has used non-destructive and non-invasive techniques to extract information about geometric drawings and their underlying surface shapes and color in four caves. Using photometric techniques that involve computational cameras, they have captured a series of images under different light angles, recovering measurements of brush and tool marks in the process.

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]]>Museo de Prehistoria y Arqueología de Cantabria<![CDATA[Dunkirk, the last great mystery of World War II]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2017/07/18/inenglish/1500379786_387799.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2017/07/18/inenglish/1500379786_387799.htmlWed, 19 Jul 2017 08:55:10 +0000Supposedly protected by the Maginot Line, France and Britain faced off against Germany, but there was no fighting. Then in May of 1940, German tanks launched an unstoppable offensive, cutting through the Allied defenses like a hot knife through butter. By June 11, Paris had been abandoned by the French authorities and was an open city.

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]]><![CDATA[The world braces itself for a future of heat waves]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2017/07/03/inenglish/1499093149_399969.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2017/07/03/inenglish/1499093149_399969.htmlTue, 04 Jul 2017 07:04:17 +0000In the city of Turbat in Pakistan, it was 53.5ºC on May 28, the highest temperature ever recorded there in the month of May and perhaps the highest ever recorded in Asia and even the world, barring the 56.6ºC logged in Death Valley, California, in 1913, and the 54ºC recorded in Kuwait in 2016.

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]]>Julio Muñoz<![CDATA[When the world shut its doors to the Jews]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2017/06/19/inenglish/1497868133_956994.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2017/06/19/inenglish/1497868133_956994.htmlMon, 19 Jun 2017 11:42:04 +0000The Allies’ decision to close their borders to Jews during World War II is still a sensitive subject, and new files held by the United Nations that have just been released by the London-based Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide show that the United States, Russia, and Great Britain knew as early as December 1942 about Germany’s operations to liquidate European Jewry in the wake of the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941.

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]]>KEYSTONE<![CDATA[The Spanish role in the French Resistance]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2016/10/11/inenglish/1476196791_317656.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2016/10/11/inenglish/1476196791_317656.htmlWed, 12 Oct 2016 13:10:53 +0000The story that France constructed for itself after World War II goes like this: the country was liberated by the Resistance with some help from the Allies, and save for “a handful of wretches,” to use the words of General Charles de Gaulle, the rest of France’s citizens behaved like true patriots.

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]]><![CDATA[The night Spain’s transition to democracy nearly derailed]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2016/02/03/inenglish/1454496288_346509.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2016/02/03/inenglish/1454496288_346509.htmlFri, 05 Feb 2016 08:19:36 +0000When neo-fascists gunned down five labor lawyers inside their office in downtown Madrid on January 24, 1977, just over a year after the death of dictator General Francisco Franco, the government of Prime Minister Adolfo Suárez, along with much of the population, feared that the country’s nascent transition from dictatorship to democracy had been wrecked.

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]]>Antonio Gabriel<![CDATA[France awaits Spain’s proposal for supporting fight against Islamic State]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/11/23/inenglish/1448267691_118492.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/11/23/inenglish/1448267691_118492.htmlMon, 23 Nov 2015 09:12:17 +0000The French government is waiting for Spain to explain how it plans to cooperate in the fight against the Islamic State, shortly after the European Union activated a mutual defense clause at France’s request.

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]]>Joe Penney<![CDATA[Why Plato has been expelled from Spanish high schools]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/10/07/inenglish/1444206355_205730.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/10/07/inenglish/1444206355_205730.htmlMon, 19 Oct 2015 08:09:41 +0000“No… Plato is easy…” Enrique P. Mesa, a high school philosophy teacher in the working-class Madrid district of Villaverde, is a man on a mission: to convince his students that his subject has a role to play in everyday life, and that anybody can get their head around philosophy.

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]]><![CDATA[Is fast food killing off Spain’s famed Mediterranean diet?]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/07/14/inenglish/1436884922_083159.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/07/14/inenglish/1436884922_083159.htmlWed, 15 Jul 2015 08:32:44 +0000The profusion of fast food restaurants in historical city centers along the Mediterranean – where the most popular menu item is often a dish of spaghetti swimming in a pool of industrially produced carbonara sauce – is just one of the signs that a slow but inexorable change is underway: the end of the Mediterranean diet.

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]]>Claudio Álvarez<![CDATA[Las Ventas: bringing bullfighting’s present and past together]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/06/22/inenglish/1434989004_122251.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/06/22/inenglish/1434989004_122251.htmlTue, 23 Jun 2015 09:32:37 +0000In 1875, two of the most important Spanish journalists of the 19th century, José Ortega Munilla and Miguel Moya, founded a newspaper called El chiclanero, which specialized in bullfighting and was meant for distribution two hours after each fight.

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]]>Carlos rosillo<![CDATA[Why Spain’s research and development is going nowhere]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/06/08/inenglish/1433750633_214156.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/06/08/inenglish/1433750633_214156.htmlMon, 15 Jun 2015 08:13:39 +0000The discovery of penicillin wasn’t enough in itself to change the world: it first had to be made into a medicine, and then distributed to humanity. This leap is one that many breakthroughs and inventions by Spanish scientists working at the country’s universities very often fail to make. Research that could improve lives, such as flour for people with celiac disease, a self-driving tractor, or a kit for analyzing wine and beer, and that have taken years to develop and cost millions of euros, are either never developed, or are taken abroad.

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]]><![CDATA[A 37-minute prehistoric journey]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/04/21/inenglish/1429617567_293566.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/04/21/inenglish/1429617567_293566.htmlWed, 22 Apr 2015 11:32:29 +0000This is the first time Leonore Weber, a 73-year-old retired psychotherapist from New York, has visited Spain. When she arrived at the Altamira caves on Friday morning as part of a guided tour of prehistoric sites in northern Spain organized by the American Museum of Natural History in New York, she had no idea her name had been included in a weekly lottery to choose five people to be allowed into the cave. Accompanying Weber were another American, a Norwegian, and two Spaniards.

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]]>Alejandro Ruesga<![CDATA[Altamira cave will open to visitors]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/03/27/inenglish/1427469981_303108.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/03/27/inenglish/1427469981_303108.htmlFri, 27 Mar 2015 16:47:42 +0000The cave of Altamira, a Unesco World Heritage Site and one of the world’s most important examples of prehistoric art, is to be opened for restricted visits for as long as no negative impact is detected.

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]]>Pablo Hojas<![CDATA[Altamira must be closed to visitors, Spanish scientists tell Unesco]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/03/23/inenglish/1427122533_376325.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/03/23/inenglish/1427122533_376325.htmlThu, 26 Mar 2015 10:20:14 +0000The future of the Altamira caves, home to one of the most spectacular examples of Paleolithic art on the planet, is to be decided over the next few weeks.

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]]>the gallery colection / corbis<![CDATA[Germanwings crash site lies in remote and mountainous area of Alps]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/03/24/inenglish/1427204425_906651.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/03/24/inenglish/1427204425_906651.htmlTue, 24 Mar 2015 13:43:15 +0000Germanwings flight GWI9525, which suffered an accident on Tuesday morning while flying from Barcelona to Düsseldorf, has crashed in one of the most remote and inaccessible areas in France. “We are talking about the middle of the Alps, it’s an area that’s very difficult to access,” explained Gilles Gravier, the head of the tourist office at Val d’Allos, which is located near to the crash site.

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]]>A.CH POUJOULAT<![CDATA[The truffle capital of the world]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/03/03/inenglish/1425387961_395051.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/03/03/inenglish/1425387961_395051.htmlThu, 05 Mar 2015 09:49:12 +0000Gúdar Javalambre is a small district of around 8,600 inhabitants who live in 24 villages spread out across the harsh landscape of the Maestrazgo mountains that lie between Valencia and Teruel in eastern Spain. The area, whose population has fallen steadily over the last half-century, is one of the least-populated in Europe – but that is not what marks it out. What does it make it remarkable, however, is the fact that Gúdar Javalambre is now the center of a global truffle industry that over the last decade has breathed new life into the district, creating jobs and reviving the local economy.

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]]>David Asensio<![CDATA[Will Spain free its orca whales?]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/02/09/inenglish/1423476143_408439.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/02/09/inenglish/1423476143_408439.htmlMon, 09 Feb 2015 10:23:20 +0000The music hasn’t been turned on yet, and the team is still readying for the show, carrying large buckets of sardines to the side of the huge pool in Loro Parque, a marine theme park in the Canary Island of Tenerife. Suddenly, three orca whales surface, their characteristic shrill call reminding everybody present that they are the main attraction. It’s also a moving illustration of the intelligence of these huge mammals, and their ability to connect with another species: our own. Long a source of fascination to humans, over the last half century orcas, or killer whales, have attracted millions of visitors to the marine parks around the world where they are held in captivity.

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]]>Martin Sasse/laif<![CDATA[Taking on the mushroom mafias]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2014/12/09/inenglish/1418123210_284655.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2014/12/09/inenglish/1418123210_284655.htmlTue, 09 Dec 2014 15:42:32 +0000This fall the Civil Guard has carried out a series of operations throughout Spain as part of a crackdown on illegal harvesting of wild mushrooms that has seen organized gangs of up to 50 people camping out in woodland for weeks on end and stripping forests of valuable species.

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]]>JUNTA DE CASTILLA Y LEÓN<![CDATA[Campofrío vows to rebuild factory in Burgos, after devastating blaze]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2014/11/17/inenglish/1416241640_060198.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2014/11/17/inenglish/1416241640_060198.htmlTue, 18 Nov 2014 11:49:04 +0000Spanish food group Campofrío said on Monday that it would open a new plant in Burgos within two years, after a fire completely destroyed a major factory in the northern city at the weekend.

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]]><![CDATA[Are visitors, or Mother Nature, damaging Altamira’s cave paintings?]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2014/10/24/inenglish/1414162319_613116.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2014/10/24/inenglish/1414162319_613116.htmlFri, 24 Oct 2014 17:06:09 +0000Since their discovery in the late 19th century, the world-famous Altamira caves in Cantabria, northern Spain, have been the subject of fierce debate. Initially, the main topic was the exact provenance of prehistoric paintings inside them – created anywhere up to 35,000 years ago. These days, however, it’s whether members of the public should be allowed to set foot in the site.

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]]>josé luis lópez linares<![CDATA[Veteran war reporter dies aged 72]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2014/01/23/inenglish/1390484903_678725.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2014/01/23/inenglish/1390484903_678725.htmlThu, 23 Jan 2014 13:53:24 +0000Veteran reporter and war correspondent Manuel Leguineche, who died on Wednesday morning in a Madrid hospital at the age of 72, once wrote that World War II began in his home town of Gernika.

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]]>gorka lejarcegi