“... established itself as a new Sparta; and in the rest of the world, where the inability of Western powers to condemn Israel’s conduct – much less bring it to an end – has made a mockery of the rules-based order that they claim to uphold.After the 1967 war, Isaac Deutscher recalled a German phrase, ‘Man kann sich totsiegen’ – ‘you can triumph ...”

“... roaring through. Glasman wants to ensnare capitalism in local associations that give people some powers of resistance against the moneymen. His rather clunky name for this is ‘democratic micro-entanglement’. The other problem with liberalism, and the reason it is no good at this sort of micro-politics, is that liberals have a fatal weakness for ...”

“... on Nottingham architecture. The general effect is excellent; once again Johnson proves that his powers as a writer can withstand his quixotic attempt to overcome the hated restrictions imposed on his truth-telling by the odious convention of binding up paper, each page in its due and boring order, into artefacts known as books. Formal experimentation ...”

“... excitement). In a career whose contours provide another of Brewer’s telling case-studies, Jonathan Tyers, proprietor of Vauxhall Gardens, made it a place of music and art, as well as parade and flirtation. Those who paid their shilling might be serenaded not only by love songs and patriotic airs, but also by the music of Corelli, J.C. Bach and ...”

“... able to distinguish a series of distinctive eras: the ‘First Peace Movement’ (1793-1816), the Jonathan Dymond era (1816-31), the Joseph Sturge era (1832-45), the Elihu Burritt era (1846-8) and finally the Richard Cobden era (1848-51), which he charts as being clearly pacificist rather than pacifist, albeit one in which pacifists still held an ‘honoured ...”

“... by the doctrine of terra nullius. It was a case of first come, first served for the European powers, especially when the native inhabitants proved insufficiently organised (not recognisably human enough) to treat with. That they were not seen only made them more feared in the remote early settlements at Sydney Cove and elsewhere. Just what claims to ...”

“... as wars proper, and call for a ‘humanitarian pacifist’ intervention on the part of the Western powers – and direct attacks on the US or other representatives of the new global order, in which case, again, we do not have wars proper, but merely ‘unlawful combatants’ resisting the forces of universal order. In this second case, one cannot even imagine ...”

“... of Under the Volcano), and he also gives us Lowry’s magnificently pugnacious, colossal letter to Jonathan Cape, composed in furious response to a standard request for cuts and revisions to the manuscript of the novel. This communication has rightly been described by Lowry’s biographer Gordon Bowker as ‘probably the most subtle and revealing letter ever ...”

“... at the Folklore Society said Lang had jumbled up genuinely ancient tales with the work of Jonathan Swift and the French fabulists, whose fairies and giants were merely their own inventions. Yet this was a literary not a scientific venture, one less interested in curating immemorial fragments than in showing readers what it was like to think with ...”

“... to individual cases. Andy Burnham, now in Downing Street, has indicated that he wants devolved powers (mayors in particular) to take the initiative on this issue, which would allow the specific features of different regions to influence policy. But Milburn’s final report, which is due in the autumn, will suggest a national policy strategy. In these ...”

“... courage or the luck – from a project one had taken to be one’s own. ‘A courageous person,’ Jonathan Lear has suggested, ‘has a proper orientation towards what is shameful and what is fearful.’ We tend to think of giving up, in the ordinary way, as a lack of courage, as an improper or embarrassing orientation towards what is shameful and ...”

“... interested in his own place in the firmament’. According to Blair’s chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, McGuinness tended to defer to Adams. If McGuinness was ever negotiating alone he would say he needed to discuss a proposal with Adams. Adams, in similar circumstances, sometimes kept his own counsel. In June 2004 Adams ‘very ...”

“... the Kincora scandal finally surfaced in the press. This had nothing to do with Wallace, but the powers-that-be, who had not wanted these skeletons out of the cupboard, were doubtless confirmed in their view that it was too dangerous to have Wallace wandering round free. Three months later Wallace was arrested, found guilty of the manslaughter of his friend ...”

“... echo of this imperfectly acknowledged transformation in the more avowedly Marxist work of Jonathan Dollimore. In his absorbing book Radical Tragedy Dollimore made free use of the term ‘essentialism’, meaning the ascription of a permanent, necessary form to reality. He wrote, in a way which still seems bizarre to me, as if Karl Popper had never ...”

“... and prose in a 45-page anthology which has just been published. Meanwhile Mr Patten, who has no powers to control university entrance, has urged vice-chancellors to stop admitting students whose spelling and grammar are not up to scratch. Lady Blatch, a junior education minister, has called on school examining boards to exclude television programmes from ...”