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“... in the Comédie humaine.) Balzac’s significance in the history of the novel was fully apparent by 1905, when Henry James said that his ‘achievement remains one of the most inscrutable, one of the unfathomable, final facts in the history of art’. Of course, not all Balzac’s contemporaries agreed on the quality of the work; some complained that his ...”

“... 1969 suggested that two-thirds of the population had read at least one of the Astérix books; and by the time of Goscinny’s death total sales in France are said to have amounted to more than 55 million copies, putting Astérix substantially ahead of his main (Belgian) rival, Tintin. The first French space satellite, launched in 1965, was named in his honour ...”

“... the diasporas, the ghettos: repeated down the generations, the religious year itself structured by their commemoration. Who’s to say if one was a little earlier or a little later?The Venetian ghetto was founded by Senate decree on 29 March 1516. The doge was Leonardo Loredan. ‘No God-fearing subject of our ...”

“... seagull there, a wingspan from something prehistoric. You didn’t need to know what it was, or to be reminded of the albatross’s association with luck or guilt or human burden, or even to understand how far this one must have travelled, to see the majesty and melancholy in the creature’s remains. This was Coleridge’s harmless bird ‘that loved the man ...”

“... atrocities on which the Allies turned a blind eye, half-hearted support of reactionaries followed by ignominious betrayal – but the real reason it was judged so harshly was that it failed. Nothing substantive was achieved, while, as the British commander of Allied forces in the north, Edmund Ironside, noted at the time of the British withdrawal from North ...”

“... September 1943, following Italy’s surrender to the Allies and the subsequent occupation of Rome by German forces, Heinrich Himmler sent an order to Herbert Kappler, head of the SS in the capital city: ‘All Jews,’ it said, ‘without regard to nationality, age, sex or condition, must be transferred to Germany and ...”

“... rebel author has never learnt the art of diplomacy and at times has been as bitterly criticised by his erstwhile Communist friends as by members of the government which denied him a passport. His physical toughness was developed in his youth, when he worked on a sheep farm in the bush for £1 a week. At the same time, he ...”

“... The festschrift, a collection of essays in honour of a senior professor, used to be dismissed as a rather tiresome German habit. Now, I think, it has become embedded in English academic procedure. A festschrift is a gratifying compilation to receive and sets an interesting task for the contributor. But it is the most difficult type of book to review ...”

“... Because it’s there’ may be sufficient motive for the intrepid, but many are disheartened by the laborious hours needed to reach a position even to attempt an assault on Finnegans Wake. For such timid aspirants and for those in the early stages of fascination, Roland McHugh’s book, presenting information gathered by earlier explorers (including himself), will save months of preparatory toil ...”

“... Early in the war, the British government realised that the key to the country’s survival would be its ability to secure supplies of food and raw materials, for much of which it would not be able to pay. The answer could only lie in assistance from the United States. Roll was one of a number of British economists who ...”

“... avoids self-pity. But self-satisfaction and self-righteousness were certainly not purged by keeping the journal. His intelligence and sensitivity often distanced him from the art of the past which was the ostensible object of his desire, but in recompense elevated him comfortably above all but a handful of his fellow men. It is hard to suppose that ...”

“... Parks’s protest shots, Robert Frank’s The Americans, Diane Arbus’s weirdos), wouldn’t be worth the film it was shot on – but it was different for Roy DeCarava. Hallway (1953) is a photo about nothing except a dark, empty corridor in a Harlem tenement: a quiet image that speaks to what it was like to inhabit these forgotten spaces, to ...”

“... and Amsterdam. Unless we decide to replace them with 945 different measures (the 35 would have to be agreed with each of the 27 member states), the current agreements will have to be renegotiated with the EU itself. Otherwise they will lapse, and the EAW will go with them. Operational agreements with non-EU Norway have ...”

“... collected around the census year of 1841 and gave female life expectancy as 42 and male as 40. By the sixth table, in 1891, life expectancy for women in England and Wales was 48 and for men 44. Many people lived longer than this, but so many babies died in their first year of life that it brought the average down. Public health reforms during the 1890s ...”

“... even under the floodlights and swathed in the body-heat of 72,485 restless spectators. But by the time Darius Khondji’s high-definition cameras find him, four minutes into Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno’s film Zidane: A 21st-Century Portrait, ‘Zizou’ is already sweating. Every few seconds, he blows the droplets away from his mouth; they ...”