“... extensive list of unpublished documents consulted in German archives and published primary sources read in libraries in Berlin, Cologne, Freiburg and elsewhere. Over the eight years he took to research and write the book, Kurlander hoovered up everything even remotely connected with the topic. His argument unfolds logically and consistently. And there are ...”

“... however, the trend was in the opposite direction: the internal passport regime introduced by Peter the Great at the beginning of the 18th century was long retained as a regulator of movement. The Russian internal passport on the eve of the First World War identified its holders (men only) by title or rank, religion, marital status and liability for ...”

“... Brussels itself. Hungarian highways, built with EU money, were dotted with billboards that read ‘Let’s Stop Brussels’. Merkel’s Christian Democrats gestured at ‘red lines’ – and Orbán crossed them with impunity. He could do it because while talking the talk of anti-neoliberal populism – describing himself as a ‘plebeian’ in ...”

“... dispatches of the period. In February 1873, ladies in New York opened an issue of Harper’s to read an account of a sjambok whipping: ‘The cat crossed his shoulders until his large eyes were bloodshot … his hands working in agony; but he kept silence until the thirtieth time the lash descended, when, with a deep groan, full of the misery of physical ...”

“... correspondence: did Molyneux keep the letter out of fear, or pride? There can be no doubt why Peter George Patmore, father of the poet Coventry Patmore, kept the letters in which Hazlitt passionately poured out his rage and jealousy over Sara Walker, the daughter of his boarding-house keeper, ‘who leads a sporting life with everyone who comes in ...”

“... was needed, some suggested, was ‘therapeutic coitus’, expressed with total lack of courtesy by Peter of Spain, who believed in applying ‘plasters or women to the testicles’. A good thrashing was Bernard de Gordon’s cure. Others had more civilised ideas. Yet it was never at any time a very civilised area, for all its romantic associations. Wack ...”

“... figures. He notes that people who have never visited museums feel that there are too many words to read. One is surprised that they were permitted (or could be bothered) to fill in this part of a questionnaire, but their response does at least suggest that some of the less educated members of the public would not appreciate having information about the class ...”

“... of magic, and partly to the historical researches of scholars like Frances Yates, D.P. Walker and Peter French. In Renaissance Magic and the Return of the Golden Age, John Mebane offers an inclusive, deeply researched overview of the subject. He examines the many component parts of Renaissance occultism. It was, in the spirit of the time, a recovery of ...”

“... Produced to accompany an exhibition in Essen, the book includes detailed catalogue entries which read well in their own right (although it is a pity that A.C. Pugin’s date of birth is wrong throughout). The first part of the book, which comprises a series of essays on subjects including painting, collecting, literature, science and economics, as they ...”

“... of the dialectical interplay of war and of its paradoxical logic. Memo to aspiring strategists: read the Portal-WSC exchange of memoranda word by word. The platoon also has a section of biographers, with Robert Rhodes James, of C: A Study in Failure 1900-1939 and Lord Randolph Churchill, here present in a chatty round-up that is mere fluff; Paul ...”

“... glover. Even here in Canterbury there were other young writers growing up: John Lyly, son of Peter Lyly, clerk to the consistorial court; and Stephen Gosson, a joiner’s son. We have here a miniature blueprint for late Elizabethan theatrical tastes: Marlowe the tragedian, whose thunderous poetry packed them in at the public theatres; Lyly the author of ...”

“... could not avoid a damage assessment on Philby. His 30-page report, according to CIA officers who read it, was poorly constructed and very uninformative – ‘an attempt to turn the spotlight away from Philby’. Yet to himself he was forced to admit that everything Philby had learnt about the CIA had come from the very officer whose job it was to protect ...”

“... the factualists are mistaken both about what historians should do and what they actually do. If I read my colleagues correctly, they are continually, and properly, testing stories about what might have happened in order to figure out what did happen. To argue why the Han empire collapsed, why European populations contracted in the 14th century, why World War ...”

“... of them rejected all historical applications of psychoanalysis as inherently unreliable. Yet as Peter Gay has aptly pointed out, insofar as every historian operates with a theory of human nature, every historian is inescapably an amateur psychologist. The choice is not whether to use psychology or not, but whether to borrow the insights of professional ...”

“... never can taste the joy of Elysium, because it is a spiritual joy & they cannot perceive it. When Peter Gay wrote about the sensual life of the Victorians, he cited the Hawthornes as an exemplary pair, remarking how their talk of ‘holy’ kisses sanctified their evident delight in the satisfactions of the flesh. But Herbert is more inclined to emphasise the ...”