Nineteenth-century Europe abounds with conspiracy both ghastly and mysterious. Jesuits plot against Freemasons. French criminals plan bombings by day and celebrate black masses by night. Every nation has its own secret service, perpetrating forgeries, plo
1945, Lake Como. Mussolini and his mistress are captured and shot by local partisans. The precise circumstances of II Duce's death remain shrouded in confusion and controversy. 1992, Milan. Colonna, a depressed hack writer, is offered a fee he can't refus
An extraordinary epic, brilliantly-imagined, new novel from a world-class writer and author of The Name of the Rose. Amid the carnage and confusion Baudolino saves a Byzantine historian and high court official from certain death at the hands of the crusad
But who are 'they'?HOW TO SPOT A FASCIST is a selection of three thought-provoking essays on freedom and fascism, censorship and tolerance - including Eco's iconic essay 'Ur-Fascism', which lists the fourteen essential characteristics of fascism, and draw
After the Cold War, the 'Hot War' has made its comeback in Afghanistan and Iraq. Exhuming Kipling's 'Great Game', we have gone back to the clash between Islam and Christianity. The ghost of the Yellow Peril has been resurrected, the nineteenth-century anti-Darwin debate has been reopened, right-wing governments predominate.