“... by an obscure one entirely because of its associational value. A small watercolour seascape by John Constable, though unfinished, trails clouds of reflected glory from the familiar Romantic landscapes and the atmospheric intensity of his big ‘six-footer’ canvases. If, however, paper analysis reveals it to be a work of the 1840s, probably by ...”

“... Man are the two ‘foundation texts’ of the English working-class movement. It is above all in John Bunyan, he argues, that we find ‘the slumbering Radicalism’ which was preserved through the 18th century, and broke out again and again in the 19th. Bunyan was born in a cottage on the edge of Elstow, a village near Bedford, in November 1628. His father ...”

“... detail includes distinctive local landscapes and historical figures, including Simón Bolívar and John Brown, making cameos alongside Hitler and Charlie Chaplin.The fresco was recently moved with great care several miles across town to SFMoMA. It will undergo conservation over the next two years while its usual home, the City College of San Francisco ...”

“... historian. His notions of history-writing may not accommodate the wilder ambitions of Whigs like John Morley, who said that ‘the history of England ought to end with something that might be called a moral,’ or Professor Seeley, whose Expansion of England, invigorating though it is, gave ample proof that he really believed that ‘history fades into mere ...”

“... an oblique and unsolicited tribute. There is evidence of this persistent dialogue of the deaf in John Hollander’s excellent book, The Gazer’s Spirit: Poems Speaking to Silent Works of Art, a learned study of the tradition of ekphrasis – poetic description of paintings – illustrated by a ‘gallery’ of paintings and their tributary poems: Aretino on ...”

“... like Kenyatta; he preached national unity (as they all did). One who hoped much from him was John Githongo, the hero of Wrong’s fascinating, richly researched and important new book, It’s Our Turn to Eat: The Story of a Kenyan Whistleblower. Githongo believed Kibaki when he proclaimed an end to corruption, and became his right-hand man in the task of ...”

“... fascination with how the past conceived its own past. How did 1930s sensibilities, from John Betjeman to Cecil Beaton, engage with Georgian and Victorian architecture? What of the interwar flirtation with the Baroque, spoken for by Sacheverell Sitwell, or the period’s notions of Neolithic Britain? (Massingham, a long-out-of-print ...”

“... III. Henry was only nine when he came to the throne in 1216, after the death of his father, King John. The last restrictions on his authority were lifted in 1227, but as late as 1232, when he was 25, he was described by the Margam annalist as a ‘rex puer’, king boy. Henry complained that he was still being treated as a boy in wardship by the counsellors ...”

“... stone structure. The Barrans Fountain was built by the Victorian clothing manufacturer Sir John Barran, once also the city’s mayor. He must have been a man with ambition. A building he constructed in the city centre is Moorish and beautiful, a small glimpse of Granada in the middle of West Yorkshire, though it was nothing more grand than a ...”

“... before the committee’. Almost all the Republicans in Congress, with the distinct exception of John McCain, opposed the publication of the findings, and their highest card was the absence of testimony by agents. Yet written materials of sufficient quantity and authority may have a credibility that only the most reliable of witnesses could claim. The ...”

“... present. ‘Unbelievably,’ he says of the Irish nationalist Daniel O’Connell’s killing of John D’Esterre (in a duel that set Catholic against Protestant), ‘O’Connell faced no legal proceedings at all over this act, while his standing among his followers was enhanced.’Rather than spoiling his book, this authorial stance galvanises readers to ...”

“... have rather deserted him. It’s been a while since one could claim that, in the words of ‘John Wesley Harding’, ‘he was never known to make a foolish move.’ These lapses were partially redeemed by Biograph (1985) and are further corrected by this Official Bootleg Series: Volumes I-III, at last put out by Columbia. Ever since the first ever ...”

“... Of guitar pioneer Les Paul we learn that Bill ‘found him charming’. He and blues singer John Hammond ‘chatted for a while’. He ‘met’ Bob Dylan. Above all, what you miss from Wyman’s account – that word again – is any pride in, or even positive recognition of, the danger of the Stones at their peak. This is the band that played ‘Stray ...”

“... to a wider public, and in this respect can be seen at its best in a lucid account by its director, John Sutton, of many-handed research over the past twenty years in the vast region which lies between the Indian Ocean and the eastern periphery of the Congo Basin. What has been here at stake is partly the history of the coast and offshore islands, and partly ...”

“... of Europe, notably Britain, the American Revolution may still be unfinished. Looking back in 1818, John Adams asked a fundamental question: ‘But what do we mean by the American Revolution? Do we mean the American war? The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the hearts and minds of the people; a change in their religious ...”