“... phenomenon seems to suggest, fragmentation remains at the heart of the American social fabric. Robert Wiebe, one of the most creative historians of modern America, has argued recently that the United States is, in his phrase, ‘a segmented society’. Its people cope with the enormous diversity of their nation less by rallying behind common assumptions ...”

“... Italian cemeteries and to the marble hands of deceased royal children at Osborne House, but there may also be a growing fascination with the mixed feelings which such art stirs in us and some curiosity as to the consolations which it once provided. For the artists who created these things – unlike the modern sculptors who appear to have a similar interest ...”

“... Judah, Tamar, Moses, Saul, David and Ruth emerge, characters who, beyond any archetypal role they may play as bearers of a divine mandate, have been etched as indelibly vivid individuals in the imagination of a hundred generations’. This aim, he warns us, cannot be achieved without meticulous attention to the literary techniques and artistry of the ...”

“... novelist’s ear, possibly what was known when I was a boy as a pack of lies. Not only the cynical may find it remarkable how these writers, so dull at home, become so fascinating abroad, so easily embroiled in sexual intrigues, backwoods vendettas, dangerous adventures, so readily adopted by crazed millionaires, whimsical bandits, insatiable madams of ...”

“... socialism of James Connolly, two of the 16 who, along with MacBride, were executed in 1916. Robert Wohl in his book The Generation of 1914 writes about the vogue of martial mysticism that took hold all over Europe at the time, and Ireland was not immune. Hindsight may regard it as unhealthy, largely because of the ...”

“... Centennial Park, he was hired at the minimum wage. The bomb fragments found at his home, however, may only have been payment in kind, souvenirs of the explosion rather than evidence pointing to its perpetrator. In this privately-sponsored Olympic Games that wore the face of American nationalism, did the global Olympic village have an enemy guarding its gates ...”

“... will increasingly call for firm handling. For Professor Colin Matthew a more difficult task may be to find contributors who can write accessibly about the work of geneticists, crystallographers and the adepts of quantum mechanics. Reviewers tend to quote the more boggling passages and then pass on, perhaps, to the more intelligible subject of ...”

“... Barthes’s Mythologies, brilliantly expanded by off-beat, speculative historical adventurers like Robert Darnton, and narrowed by most contemporary researchers to the study of products of mass consumption. Foucault obscurely meditated about authority or confinement or sex; Erica Rand can make equally weighty points with the aid of Ken’s crotch. Part of a ...”

“... per cent for the socialist Lionel Jospin, 19 per cent for Chirac and 8 per cent for the Communist Robert Hue. Ten years ago, on the same measure, the Front received 8 per cent of working-class support. Only 30 per cent of Le Pen’s voters see themselves as belonging to the Far Right. Another 23 say simply that they are of the Right, while 29 per cent believe ...”

“... Rainbow Theatre, the Ramones at New York’s CBGB, the Sex Pistols tramping around London, Derrik May in Detroit and Nirvana on the road to Tijuana. The collection is a massive improvement on the comparable Penguin Book of Rock and Roll Writing, sparkier by far, and closer to the lived experience of fans and bands. It ignores cultural theorists with their ...”

“... of the Gothic carry us too far beyond the simple devoutness that responded to the terror. That may be why the good old horror film, in its pre-sophisticated stage, was more faithful than literature has since been to the properties of Gothic which Mrs Barbauld had in mind. Her ‘terror’ may have been a simple form of ...”

“... die Toten’ – ‘Blessed are the dead’), and the intensely plangent five-part Lamentations of Robert White, who died of plague in 1574, at the age of 36, along with his entire family.9 March. Europe is closing down. Flights are being cancelled. Two LRB editors have plans to go to New York, where the situation is just beginning to kick off. Sam decides to ...”

“... he said. He spent much of his time away from court, writing to his mother that he ‘faced, if I may say so, no opponent other than Your Majesty yourself’. Power was not shared equally: Maria Theresa made the decisions. But Joseph refused to give his assent if he disagreed, though his mother saw such refusals as betrayals. Numerous reports refer to her ...”

“... Godfrey Kneller’s Kit Cat Club portraits, clockwise from top left: Jacob Tonson (1717); Robert Walpole (c.1712); William Congreve (1709); Joseph Addison (c.1710). Around this time Tonson founded the Kit-Cat Club, whimsically named after a fancy pastry merchant called Christopher Cat, but in practice the engine-room of Whig politics during the ...”

“... Sinn Féin looks set to become the largest party in the assembly following elections on 5 May. O’Neill may well become first minister – the first nationalist to hold the post. Donaldson has said this would be a ‘real problem’ for unionists.In times of crisis, unionism reverts to the Lundy principle. This has ...”