“... the US Marine headquarters overnight on 22-23 October after attending a pop concert. These points may seem trivial, but inattention to detail has been one of the most salient and devastating features of US policy in the Middle East – as Mr Bradlee’s book makes clear. It was not really surprising that North and his colleagues in Washington sometimes seemed ...”

“... of its own dynamic or the causes of its own crises’. While the turn to ‘British history’ may be motivated by waning English confidence, however, many Irish and Scottish historians interpret it as a form of intellectual colonialism. Having dismantled Whig and Marxist explanations of political change in England, revisionists like Conrad Russell make ...”

“... his memoirs as a way of publicising a new cause: the unification of Italy. When he heard in May 1860 that Garibaldi had sailed for Sicily, Dumas changed his plans and followed in his schooner, the Emma. But not with all convenient speed. He missed the taking of Palermo, having dallied at Marseille to throw a party and stopped for a day in Sardinia to ...”

“... that his thoughts strayed to ‘popsies’ even while working hard on the structure of DNA; Richard Feynman enjoyed having himself photographed playing the bongos, and, like Kary Mullis, broadcast his enthusiasm for topless bars: ‘When my calculations didn’t work out,’ Feynman said, ‘I would watch the girls.’ Mullis just rides the wave farther ...”

“... but he was aware of the potential of civic government. He recognised that the Victorian burgher may have seen himself as the arch-opponent of collectivism – ‘“Socialism, Sir?” he’d say: “Don’t waste the time of a practical man by your fantastic absurdities. Self-help, Sir, individual self-help, that’s what made our city what it ...”

“... architects to think there was anything for them in new Tube stations besides the ‘fit-out’. As Richard MacCormac, whose firm has designed the new Southwark Station, put it: ‘the engineers design the system, then the architects dress it up. Was it just a matter of deciding which tiles to put on the platform walls?’ When Paoletti started looking for ...”

“... mirror – heir, in this, to the Winnicottian mother. Here, and elsewhere, the Anglophone reader may be reminded of the importance of this theme in English literature, as in Donne’s ‘The Good-Morrow’ (‘My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears’) or Shakespeare’s proto-structuralist joke about infidelity in The Merchant of Venice, when ...”

“... Martin was not only French, but had served as an officer in the French force at Pondicherry. In May 1760, he defected to the East India Company, and like Polier, wound up in Lucknow and in the service of the nawab. Again like Polier, he made a fortune: by 1800 he was worth over £400,000, and was probably the wealthiest European in India. Just as Polier had ...”

“... new moon, and then eight days after the next full moon, they would be bound to come up double. (It may work with tulips, too, he suggests.) Platt also offered some very strange advice about fertilisers: ‘Dogs & cats applyed to the rootes of trees before the sap rise, have recovered many old decaying trees. Shred them.’ These modest and largely neglected ...”

“... evolutionary pressure. It was grouped together with books by Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins to form the canon of ‘new atheism’. I’ve Been Thinking opens with an account of the open-heart surgery Dennett underwent following a near fatal heart attack. To reduce the risk of mini-strokes, his surgeons reversed the flow of blood to his ...”

“... today – to the PLO.The bequest was the third of thirteen listed in his will of 7 May 1975, after another, larger one to the Catholic Missions Society of America, Maryknoll Fathers. There was no ringing oratory: he simply directed the money to go to the Palestine Liberation Organisation, 101 Park Avenue in New York, or if they had ...”

“... competitive and technologically innovative as any European country. The politicians in Washington may be know-nothings, but the country’s major research universities are still the best, attracting talent from all over the world. Besides, ‘the rise of the rest is a consequence of American ideas and actions.’ It follows that countries such as ...”

“... however, is not forgotten, and when a new collection of her stories is published Eliot writes to Richard Aldington asking him to order a review copy: ‘I think her inflated reputation ought to be dealt with.’ There is now a peculiar tone in letters to Murry, one or two of which are almost like love letters: Thanks, dear John, for your adorable ...”

“... brief. ‘Here is a very concise and truthful answer: the reason I write a particular story may be because something – which I call “material”, as in “raw material” – bothers me until I “do something” about it. In these cases, “bother” is wholly positive.’ A writer as capable as Davis of conjuring a found object from the merest ...”

“... the excitement of the success of their ploy, Blair and his (former?) spokesperson (ventriloquist?) may have strayed towards it. Given that it remains the case that a neocolonial war has been fought to please neo-conservative friends in an administration despised abroad and at home, this crowing may prove not to have been the ...”