“... of virginity: he wishes to extend the meaning of the word ‘virgin’ to mean ‘outside the laws of man’, like the virgin forest, so free and prodigal. He draws the Bible-reading Pratt to a consideration of the genealogy of the Virgin Mary. St Matthew, alleges Dr Psex, mentions only four women in this list of fathers and sons – and all four were ...”

“... states don’t have subjects, they have members; we may criticise the state, we disobey only laws and people). Sometimes it is more than that. The editors, in their concluding essay, point out that ‘fewer and fewer national governments’ are willing to pay for universal state benefits. But governments don’t pay, the state does; that is what makes ...”

“... provides instead succinct summaries that stress what Stroumsa calls ‘the fundamentals’: broad laws, foundational beliefs and readings of the primary sources. This innovative ‘fundamentalism’, according to Stroumsa, bears a strong resemblance to that put forward in the writings of Ibn Tumart, the founder of an Islamic movement that arose among the ...”

“... that the imposition of slavery – not only on black people but on the manners, the morale and the laws of a society based on ‘certain inalienable rights’ – had to be resisted. And when the Dred Scott decision by the Supreme Court in 1857 denied negroes all the rights of citizenship (and claimed that the constitutional founders had always intended to ...”

“... yes!’ came the enthusiastic chorus. You might say that the Jerusalem Syndrome began with King David. Once he had escorted Israel’s sacred Ark of the Covenant into the city, having conquered its Jebusite inhabitants and proclaimed it his capital, he danced in his exaltation ‘before the Lord with all his might … girded with a linen ephod’ – the ...”

“... by cults. The novel takes the form of a long journal-letter to her ‘Dear Kids, Grand-kids, In-Laws, Cousins, Assorted Genetic Riff-raff and so on’. Among other good things, familial homicide offers Pentecostal liberations. In The History of Luminous Motion the young hero would seem to be clinically autistic. But desire for his remote (because always ...”

“... cent.The John Matthews of the poem ends up with a sentence of 15 years. Norma Kitson’s husband, David Kitson, was sentenced to 20 years for work connected with the early days of the ANC. Like Dulcie, she was a hundred per cent behind him and remained so. Her spirit is unquenchable, even if she is something like the little boy in ‘The Emperor’s New ...”

“... with wartime controls was an aberration. (Wartime America was much less obedient.) Cartoon by David Langdon for ‘Punch’, November 1949. Mark Roodhouse’s answer to the crude question of just how much black market activity there was in Britain, both during the war and in the period of postwar austerity, is that, though widespread, it was far less so ...”

“... it, because not understanding it in scientific terms is not to understand it at all, but David Bodanis, the author of E=mc2, is not one of them. As someone to whom science has always been a black hole, I see Bodanis and those who bother to try to explain to the likes of me what they understand mathematically as therapists of a sort. Not to understand ...”

“... so far rightwards that it isn’t really the same party any more. In that process of migration, David Blunkett was one of the key players. Blunkett is important not only because of how he behaved when in office – we’ll get to that in a moment – but also because of the journey he took to get there. A man who from 1980 to 1987 was the leader of the ...”

“... after all was in an Ottoman Turkish that was both Persianised and written in Arabic script – and laws were duly enacted. One such law of 1967 (number 743, or 4721 in the current code), which amended Article 101 of the Turkish civil code, defines foundations in the usual way: charity groups that have the status of a legal entity formed by real persons or ...”

“... the ancient doctrine of the just war which has inspired most attempts to create international laws of war. Resort to force should have a cause sufficiently just to override the moral ugliness of war. There should be a reasonable prospect of success; the damage to be inflicted, and the lives lost, should be proportional to the good to be gained or the evil ...”

“... right, and that therefore we are not justified in reasoning from individual instances to general laws. Thus no number of observations of white swans can justify our assertion that all swans everywhere are white. They cannot even make it probable, he insists, that all swans everywhere are white. There is only one way of reasoning from the general to the ...”

“... had won the war, and so on. For his underlying allegation, that the queen is forbidden by ancient laws from acknowledging any authority superior to or other than her own, is a commonplace among the most learned Brexiteers. In fact, they often go much further back than 1689. Sir John Redwood, fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, and long-time Tory MP for ...”

“... true when we are trying to untangle humanity’s relationship with the natural environment,’ David Blackbourn writes, in this magnificently compelling, vivid and often pioneering book. Its subject is Germany’s struggle to subjugate its landscape, above all its waters, over the last 250 years. But its implications apply to the contemporary world, to the ...”