“... from the Palestinian Mandate, thereby greatly diminishing the area of ‘the Jewish National Home’; many Arabs in Palestine crowded into the Jewish settled areas, and therefore when they left they were not genuine refugees; the Jews did not displace the Arabs, it was the other way round; anyway, the Palestinian refugees were not driven out in ...”

“... adult, in middle life crippled and often in pain). Johnson tells how, all his life, not only at home but in the houses of his increasingly grand friends, Pope would call for the day-long and even night-long ministrations of coffee-bringers and other helps, the more willing for being charmingly thanked and very well paid. In other portraits, Pope chose ...”

“... founded Liberia on similar principles, Freetown had become the ‘Athens of West Africa’, home to the first university conceived on the European model in the region, and to a cosmopolitan population of free blacks from around the Atlantic. I had come to Freetown to research the black loyalists. Their improbable journey from American slavery to African ...”

“... Suppression of Street Noises. Dickens complained to Parliament on behalf of all whining, stay-at-home writers about ‘the frightful noises in despite of which your correspondents have to gain their bread’, and doubtless also gained as little sympathy as I do (so get a proper job like everyone else); and Carlyle (as I did) built himself a soundproofed ...”

“... separation in death was the story of her life, as for so many military wives: she has stayed at home in the Wye Valley, entombed at Marshal’s pious foundation of Tintern Abbey. The most important of these firsts was a book, without which Thomas Asbridge would struggle to sustain his sprightly narrative: the History of William Marshal is the first life ...”

“... irreparably’. A miscarriage leaves her ‘flooded with relief … exultant and grateful’. M.G. Lord believes she can ‘white-knuckle’ her partner’s ‘unilateral’ decision to adopt a baby, somewhat unrealistically picturing herself ‘not so much as a co-parent but as a benign auntie’ who will take care of her lover (not the infant). When the ...”

“... one thousand cartloads’, according to John Stow – before the carters could be paid and sent home. Afterwards, the area was covered over with ‘soylage of the citie’ … [T]he carts were filled with human remains … [which] had been lodged in the great ossuary of the cathedral … located under the Chapel of the Blessed Virgin. Mullaney asks us to ...”

“... his father wrote advising him to leave the girls in Glasgow rather than bring them to the parental home, but he didn’t receive the letter. His mother refused to call the children by their names and referred to them as the ‘little moonlight shades’. Difference in skin colour could provoke violence, sometimes affection, rarely indifference; often it ...”

“... police cars speeding in the opposite direction towards the bank, he missed his evening flight home to Denver. He caught one the next day and went to stay at his girlfriend’s house. The day after that, his father, Norm, came to pick him up and a few minutes later their car was surrounded by an FBI Swat team. Alex was placed under arrest, with a gun to ...”

“... less than three feet tall) alongside such frauds as the ‘Feejee Mermaid’. Lincoln felt at home with both elite and popular culture. Reynolds believes that his success as a politician stemmed from his engagement with the diverse cultural phenomena around him. For Reynolds, Lincoln really was ‘Abe’, the everyman depicted in his campaign ...”

“... and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to see realised. But, my lord, if it needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.’ What has more recently become known is that Fischer was opposed to the inclusion of the final sentence, fearing that the judge would take it as a challenge. In the event Mandela’s instinct ...”

“... all. The confessions were backed by the most overwhelming scientific evidence. Dr Frank Skuse, a Home Office forensic scientist, had found traces of nitroglycerine on the young woman’s hands as soon as she’d been arrested. He’d also found nitroglycerine, he said, on her duffle bag, which had been rescued from one of the freight wagons she’d lived ...”

“... people, who met in pubs, drank draught cider and sometimes read each other their works. It is Lord of the Rings country and yet, interestingly, social nuances appear even in this consciously Christian and nostalgic setting. Tolkien the Catholic could not stand Lewis’s fundamentalist allegory, as exemplified in tales like The Lion, the Witch and the ...”

“... Germans, and did not want them to control the Persian supply. In 1914, Churchill, who was First Lord, persuaded the Commons – alluding to ‘monopolies’, ‘trusts’, ‘foreigners’ and ‘cosmopolitans’– that the British Government should take a 51 per cent interest in the company. The Bill received its assent on 10 August. The still small ...”

“... that some trainee heritage pirate had tried to chisel free of its moorings. Then got the hell out. Home. Past the squatted shell of the Black Bull with its ‘No Evictions’ banner, through the Blank Generation extras waiting for nothing in the boarded-up shopping precinct, ducking into Muggers’ Alley alongside the decommissioned post office. To my ...”