“... ridiculous belief in authority, order and parochial patriotism, but also the old left, with its war against capitalism: both fight their shadow-theatre battles in disregard of the new realities. The signifier of this new reality in the liberal communist Newspeak is ‘smart’. Being smart means being dynamic and nomadic, and against centralised ...”

“... who pick their way across a new land, and like the ‘gleaners’ Youn keeps on invoking: second-class citizens, followers, like Ruth behind Boaz, or the gleaners in Millet’s painting, surviving on what the prosperous discard. The gleaners and the sandpipers in turn resemble the caterpillars raised by the poet’s young son – growing, climbing and ...”

“... In South Africa, a highly capitalised economy, mainstream opposition to apartheid took the form of class struggle, not race war, and Kentridge is fascinated both by the failures of the Russian Revolution and the successes of revolutionary avant-gardism. A dazzling multi-channel video collaboration with Miller and Meyburgh ...”

“... addressed to Brenan, it may at first seem to embrace those who live by their pen, but questions of class are never far away in Pritchett’s understanding of his own trajectory, suggesting that the pronoun mainly picks out those who have made their own way in the world without the leg-up which in one form or another the comfortable classes provide for their ...”

“... credit. At first sight there seems to be an overwhelming partiality for American work in the post-war period, but more critical reflection disposes of my insular prejudice. The transition from Europe, pre-1939, to the United States, post-1945, is truly astonishing. Nazi policies must take considerable responsibility for the Jewish influx and its vitalising of ...”

“... Fazzan in 1902, and now turned their energies on the Italians. Interrupted during the First World War, when Italian troops were needed elsewhere, this ‘pacification’ would continue until 1943, when the Allies finally pushed out the Italians and Germans after the battle of al-Alamein. In a brief section on the Italian period in A History of Modern Libya ...”

“... was 23. All right, that’s not so difficult. Twenty-five years before that the date was 1945: the war had just ended, and I was two years short of being born. Twenty-five years from now it will be 2020 and I’ll be 73 (maybe). Which is ridiculous – these are altogether different sorts of 25 years, surely? Why didn’t anyone tell us about time passing, the ...”

“... Mexico, Romania and the Russian empire. This remained the case until well after the Second World War, with the US still providing half of the world’s oil in 1955. But the centre of production has moved ever southwards, to the Middle East, Africa, Central Asia and South America. Today, the US accounts for only 9.6 per cent of output; the Middle East for ...”

“... secret agent in plain view, Fénéon led multiple lives in the 1880s and 1890s. He worked at the War Ministry (of all places), and quickly rose to be its head clerk. At the same time he was also active as an art critic, explicating Neo-Impressionism when it emerged in 1886 (he coined the term); and after Seurat died young in 1891, Fénéon surveyed his ...”

“... British and Irish Governments as the writing on the wall. They give every sign of preparing for war. The cargo of arms from Poland, destined for Loyalist terrorists, contained, among other materiel, two tons of high explosive. This time British intelligence intercepted the freight. But what about last time? Brian Nelson, a Loyalist terrorist and army double ...”

“... into reassurance with the assumption that others sin and suffer because differences in time, class, sex, race or nationality make them different (and inferior) in essence. In any case, we needn’t take fictional people too seriously because they are, after all, unreal. Their mishaps can confirm our own sense of safety. No writer is less willing to ...”

“... gave Asad the chance to go to school in Latakia, an experience which encouraged a good measure of class resentment and a desire to take part in political and social reform. After school his career was shaped by his attachment to the Air Force and the Ba’th Party. According to Mr Seale, Asad’s ‘commitment to conspiracy’, together with a capacity for ...”

“... victims of the Aids scourge. One cannot but note how often in Africa Aids appears to feed on war and civil strife – in Uganda, Ethiopia, the Sudan, Mozambique and Angola the coincidence is plain enough. It is not merely that all diseases spread faster among a war-weakened populace: ...”

“... provide the most reliable figures for the losses suffered by the Soviet Union in the Second World War – twenty-six to twenty-seven million, of whom ten million fell in battle or died in captivity; while the number of victims of the 1929-1952 repressions was 22 million. The first figure is correct, In the second, however, he has apparently failed to include ...”

“... monumental legislation and jump into aeroplanes to make visits to foreign powers. The Second World War immensely accelerated the pace of this change, and the reputation of Baldwin suffered, not merely because he was tarred with appeasement and unemployment, but because he represented a style and philosophy of government that was largely incomprehensible to the ...”