David Macaulay's Rome Antics

David Macaulay relives the winding and sometimes surreal journey toward the completion of Rome Antics, his illustrated homage to the historic city.

When we talk about normalisation and Trump, we are referring to the scary possibility that his antics may one day cease to appal.

Remarkably for a Dutch politician and a minor one, at that news of Wilders s antics has reached the world press. So Dutch embassies are bracing themselves for violent demonstrations, and the government is considering special security measures.

The other two conceivably relevant countries Colombia and Chile refuse to get involved for different reasons. Colombia needs President Nicolás Maduro s cooperation to sustain negotiations with the FARC guerrillas the new Chilean president, Michelle Bachelet, has always had a soft spot for Chavismo and its antics.

Macri will phase out, albeit gradually, the stringent price and capital controls favored by the Peronists. And his trade and industry minister is unlikely to repeat the antics of a recent predecessor, who placed a gun on the table while negotiating import and export quotas with local producers.

Obviously, many of its members and leaders do subscribe to these tenets, and disapprove in private of López Obrador s rabble rousing antics. But, as long they remain relatively powerless, Mexico will remain unbalanced, deprived of the modern left that it needs to combat poverty and inequality, and hostage to those who still believe in revolution and the assault on the Winter Palace.