“... canonised in 1931, is often called the patron saint of natural scientists, but he might as well be called the patron saint of curiosity. The 38 volumes of his collected works cover not only theology, law and logic, but almost every science known to his era: zoology and botany, physiology and medicine, astronomy and astrology, geography, mineralogy – even ...”

“... work led to the banning of DDT in agricultural settings around the world, but it was replaced by a new generation of pesticides, the most widely used of which, neonicotinoids, are hugely more toxic to insects. The first neonicotinoid came on the market in 1991. By the end of the decade, anecdotal evidence suggested that ...”

“... Peruvian guano. In response, the United States – itself in the midst of a boom in cotton grown by an enslaved workforce on exhausted soil – passed the Guano Islands Act of 1856. The Act encouraged US citizens to plant the Stars and Stripes on top of the mountains of guano on around two hundred islands, though the sovereign claim to all but nine was ...”

“... Memory and the past weigh so heavily on each of us that their imaginary reassurances cannot be lightly disturbed, while the temptation for governments to appropriate and commandeer traditions for their own purposes is too tempting. The anniversaries of 1588, of 1688 and 1789 are constant reminders of this complicity of past and present, and the current ...”

“... but you would hardly think so from his portrait. The earliest dateable likeness is the engraving by Robert Vaughan, done in the mid 1620s, when Jonson was around fifty. The face is jowly, bearded, dour, heavily lived-in. The shadowed eyes remind me of photos of Tony Hancock. Comedy, they seem to say, is no laughing matter. It was one of Jonson’s sayings ...”

“... How can women come to a better understanding of their cultural situation? What needs to be changed, and why? The questions are as urgent as ever, despite wishful rumours to the contrary. Numerous books about women continue to appear, offering diverse models of thought to those looking for counsel. Psychoanalytical and deconstructionist critics have been among the most glamorous figures in the crowd, encouraging women to examine the complex linguistic processes that compose feminine subjectivity ...”

“... of the latest supplement to the Dictionary of National Biography there are photographs of David Niven, Diana Dors, Eric Morecambe, John Betjeman and William Walton. Dors has a leering ‘Come up and read me sometime’ expression on her face and Niven wears his yacht-club greeter’s smile. Morecambe seems to ...”

“... meant industry. Adam Smith and Marx, it was assumed, were right. Output could most effectively be raised by moving as quickly as possible to capital-intensive mass production. David Hume’s alternative, to think in terms of a ‘product cycle’, of simple agriculture at one end and ...”

“... opponent and perfect foil, William Pitt, who, Fox’s mother is said to have predicted, would be ‘a thorn in Charles’s side as long as he lives’. David Hume, encountering Fox at 16 during one of his formative visits to Paris, was startled by his intellectual power and maturity ...”

“... Peter Owen, Brian Aldiss – have made considerable efforts to dispel such feelings of uncase by stressing how smart and cheerful she, was how little her drug addiction appeared to affect her. Such loyal friends did not wish her to be regarded as a pathological case – although since Kavan had constant access to clean ...”

“... of the Exchequer, Roy Jenkins, presided over a balanced budget and a balance-of-payments surplus. By that summer, following Labour’s loss of office and the defeat of George Brown in his Belper seat, he had become Deputy Leader of the Labour Party and heir-apparent to the leadership. But within eighteen months the dispute about Britain’s membership of the ...”

“... Metal Jacket, Hamburger Hill and Casualties of War present images of brave Americans overwhelmed by the brutality and senselessness of the struggle. Although American battlefield losses in World War One, Korea and Vietnam were roughly comparable and far less than in World War Two, the 58,000 dead in Vietnam seem to weigh more heavily on the country’s ...”

“... other two subjects of recently published biographies. The first page of the feature is dominated by a large photograph of a superbly arrogant Truman Capote – 22 years old, tiny, but potent. On the next page is a photograph (somewhat smaller) of Jean Stafford – 31 years old, severe, distant, possibly beautiful. On the very last page is a small shot of ...”

“... of the revolution whose principles became the touchstone of Whig orthodoxy also turned out to be the year in which, after well over a century, the term ‘Liberal’ lost its separate identity in our political vocabulary, having become merged in a composite destined to be known for short as ‘Democrats’. There is a ...”

“... the mouth stretches into a toothy grin. His work, once famous, is now probably best remembered by those who saw it when it first appeared in Penguin New Writing, or on book jackets and in magazines. Frances Spalding’s biography gives us the life with too many adjectives but an abundance of facts and first-hand accounts. She is tentative about the value ...”