“... Parliament Trust have done less to write the history of Parliament than to prove that its history may be too complex and amorphous to write at all. Ironically perhaps, the fact that several of these familiar reservations apply to the new four-volume The House of Commons, 1386-1421 does not detract at all from its resounding success. In the first place, as ...”

“... suspected ‘post-mortem room and anatomy room porters’ and speculated that ‘imitative action may have come into play.’ He suggested the killings were acts of emulation, committed by more than one maniac, possibly including someone bent on ‘world regeneration’. Whatever the truth of this, the phrase ‘Jack the Ripper’ represented a gothic state ...”

“... John I took the throne, and 1399, the end of the reign of his great-great-great-great grandson, Richard II. Whether it represents a discrete era of political history is less clear. John is traditionally considered the last ‘Angevin’ king: he was not only king of England, but duke of Normandy, count of Maine, of Poitou and of Anjou; he lost these ...”

“... Wales is currently staging a large loan exhibition of the Welsh ‘father of English landscape’, Richard Wilson, curated by Martin Postle and Robin Simon. It is a magnificent show, the first on this scale for more than thirty years. It will be at Cardiff until 26 October, and it is accompanied by a sumptuous catalogue, the fullest, most faithfully reproduced ...”

“... of the Gadsden flag, which became the symbol for the storming of the US Capitol. These protesters may be Canadian but the world they inhabit has a lot of American furniture – one person detained by the police thought the First Amendment would protect him. More worrying was the discovery of a stash of weapons – long guns, handguns, body armour, ammunition ...”

“... the giants celebrated ad nauseam in Jurassic Park and Walking with Dinosaurs. Hard though it may seem to associate avian elegance with cumbersome and ferocious behemoths this was the story told by the cladograms, revealed by interpreting the bones of the famous old bird Archaeopteryx unfettered by preconceived notions. That theory has been triumphantly ...”

“... troll’s amorality as bound up with the familiar masculinist fantasy of ironclad superiority. It may be that all trolls are, among other things, gendertrolls. If that is true, the troll’s self-image as a ‘trickster’, which Phillips takes seriously, doesn’t stand much scrutiny. The trickster is a figure whose only value is the destruction of ...”

“... the last week of the campaign. This generous profusion was certainly good for the press – it may even have helped the Independent to turn the corner financially – but it is unlikely to have had much effect on the election result. A study of the 1983 General Election showed that, according to the voters themselves, press advertising was the form of ...”

“... Evening, 10 May 1987. Thousands of American fingers flick their television remotes to Old Time Gospel Hour. The Reverend Jerry Falwell steps forward to address an adoring audience, worn Bibles in hand, blessed suppers of body and blood recently consumed. His message is a comforting one for this gathering. ‘They are scared to walk near one of their own kind right now ...”

“... the emergence of leftist presidents at the head of indigenous movements in Bolivia and Ecuador, may yet produce a surprise result in Paraguay’s elections. Fernando Lugo, a 58-year-old former bishop, emerged two years ago as the unexpected candidate of the freshly minted left-wing opposition, and has been leading in the opinion polls ever since. With a ...”

“... of what he recorded Hitler as having told him was invented or copied from other sources. There may be some accurate reporting in his book, but it is so mixed up with Rauschning’s own subjective representation of Nazism that it’s now virtually impossible to identify. Kurlander is of course aware of all this, but he still uses Rauschning when it suits ...”

“... civilisation was seen as the creation of Ancient Greece and Rome. ‘Plato to Nato’ courses may have introduced the mediating influence of Christianity, but essentially they emphasised the classical origins of the civilisation which educated elites in Europe and the US claimed to defend. There were few major politicians in the first half of the 20th ...”

“... have the Russian tanks rolling out onto the streets as they did in 1953. What they have achieved may well be far more than Gorbachev bargained for. But there is clearly no going back now. The East German people have made it clear that they will not be satisfied until they have gained freedom to travel, freedom of economic choice, and freedom of ...”

“... reduced his scientific loyalties to mere lip service. ‘His mind,’ says Janet Oppenheim, ‘may have imagined itself at home in a scientist’s laboratory, but Myers’s heart always yearned for a church.’ Alfred Russel Wallace also was a member of the Society for Psychical Research, but he was even less affected by its scientific slant despite the ...”

“... forced up to a quarter of a million Londoners to take shelter in the Underground every night. In May 1918, 43 German bombers attacked London; but this was their last major raid. The shortage of raw materials in Germany had become so serious that new planes could not be built in sufficient numbers, and those that were built were shoddily constructed and often ...”