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“... Bernard Leach’s A Potter’s Book, first published in 1940 and hugely popular after the war, offered a similar idyll in its description of the humble lives of Oriental peasant craftsmen to the one David evoked in the olive groves of Greece, appealing to readers who had no more intention of building their own tunnel kilns than David’s had of ...”

“... culture back over ground where he had earlier seen ‘the making of the English Working Class’; the hugely original Witness against the Beast (1993) about Blake; the far less noticed Alien Homage (1993), about his father’s see-saw relationship with Rabindranath Tagore (his father, also Edward Thompson: Indianist, novelist, Georgian ...”

“... processes and civil rights; on the other, their arrival was the first unequivocal post-war success for Fascism in the arena of ‘normal’ politics. Similarly, in a United States in which Idaho voters sent to Congress the egregious Republican Linda Cherno-with – a woman who holds every kooky belief that drives the militia movement – one may be ...”

“... was ‘repugnant’? Nicolson ‘was only attracted by younger, intellectual men of his own class’, though he seems to have had ‘some commerce’ in Berlin ‘with what he called the lower orders’. But in the second part of his career, in journalism and politics, the narrowness of his social sympathies mast have brought some penalties. He seems to ...”

“... and secret meetings – which were known to everybody.’ After the élite came the ‘middle class’ of non-Communist political prisoners, social democrats, bourgeois lackeys and churchmen. The ‘lower middle class’ consisted of rank-and-file gaolbirds, from criminals to Jehovah’s Witnesses. The ...”

“... and against Hindu fundamentalism. I listened to the various ways, small and big, in which middle-class Hindus had been infuriated by Muslims – the recitation of prayers five times a day on loudspeakers; the Shah Bano case, where a Muslim woman pleaded to be divorced under civil rather than Muslim law (her plea was upheld by the Supreme Court, but overruled ...”

“... Labour autobiography with titles like ‘From Crowscaring to Westminster’, ‘From Workshop to War Cabinet’, which expressed something admirable about their subjects. ‘From Grantham to the Ritz’ isn’t quite that. The procession of Tory grandees on TV reminding us how Thatcher saved the economy, rescued the country from the anarchy of the ...”

“... an idyll on a southern coast, some interesting experiences in Germany during the Second World War. But it is a long journey and, after 1050 pages, one may be left wishing it had been slightly shorter. Giovene seems to have put everything in, banal incidents as well as interesting ones, boring people along with some good characters, and he does it all in a ...”

“... themes (194 appeared between 1884 and 1920 alone), its members were a polyglot mixture of middle-class socialists, free-thinkers and advanced liberals whose lack of involvement in the organised working-class movement was one of its characteristic features. At the same time, British intellectuals of the Left never had an ...”

“... only with the age of reason. From then on, ‘the only prolonged period of separation was the war and its immediate aftermath.’ For those years he has drawn largely on correspondence, which makes this part of the book among the most illuminating. Philip regards C.P. as ‘the main influence’ in his life, and the admirer is as much in evidence as the ...”

“... and surprising figure to emerge in Iraq since the US invasion’. Unusually among writers on the war Cockburn describes the milieu from which al-Sadr comes and its history, as well as the world which has created his thousands of followers: a world so remote from the experiences not only of the foreign forces which have occupied Iraq, but also of many of the ...”

“... Bermondsey off, creating a ‘no-go’ area for the Police and Army. ‘For nine days, the working class administered all of Bermondsey.’ It was under workers’ control! It is clearly a stirring history and it is easy to see its appeal for the young Australian left-wing idealist. Alienated from his own country, both because of his homosexuality (then ...”

“... instalment is promised in the near future. Appropriately enough, one of the volumes is called The War of Words. In this case, at least, it is a battle Briggs has not always won. Yet the shortcomings are far outweighed by the strengths, chief among which is the simple but essential truth that Briggs has been almost as much the maker of Victorian England in our ...”