“... knew the Old Testament. Upavon’s chapel is called the Cave of Adullam, the stronghold where David sought refuge from Saul’s armies (1 Samuel), presumably as a reminder of the persecution suffered by dissenters; Little Zoar, near Calne, is evidence of the fortress mentality of those strict Calvinists among the Baptists who believed that only the Elect ...”

“... around, becoming a sober, powerful and born-again buffoon. Sittenfeld, a Democrat and a liberal, may be doing more to humanise the Bush administration than all the press secretaries, publicists, apologists and spinners in the White House itself. Defending W, however, does not appear to have been the intention of the author. Several years ago, Sittenfeld ...”

“... words, were intended to make ‘new thought . . . possible’. And this, paradoxically, may also be why he is so little studied or so infrequently involved as a participant in the parliament of ‘theory’. He was too inventive, too various. Far from making new thought possible, it sometimes feels as if Deleuze’s almost manic creation of concepts ...”

“... it wasn’t altogether surprising that another gate opened, courtesy of Maurice Bowra and Lord David Cecil, to a fellowship at Oxford. The only begetter of the study of literary theory at Oxford, he became the subject’s best-known teacher there, the leading authority in the field in Britain, and one of its most acclaimed proponents in the world ...”

“... and ‘the queer little kingdom’ of Cushman’s theatrical world. Marcus notes that James may have drawn on Cushman’s menage, in heterosexual guise, for Charlotte Stant’s quasi-incestuous marriage to the father of her lover’s wife in The Golden Bowl. But she doesn’t mention James’s savage satire on female marriage in The Bostonians, or his ...”

“... he’s quickly recording the patterns of light across this body part or that on an umbered canvas. David Hockney’s now familiar guess that lenses covertly facilitated Caravaggio’s cinematic effects came with a salute to his ‘terrific talent’. My guess is that we should cut out the middleman, and that the only apparatus involved was Caravaggio’s own ...”

“... to be safe. In principle, this does not give rise to any constitutional problems, although it may insufficiently protect human rights. European countries were deemed safe by the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc) Act 2004. The inclusion of Greece was considered by the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords – the forerunner of the ...”

“... DNB, hoped that it would turn out to be one of the ‘most amusing’ of books. This remark may have to be interpreted in the light of the fact that Stephen’s own preferred form of ‘amusement’ involved hanging by his fingertips from a ledge on the Matterhorn in the middle of a blizzard, but it is true that an abundance of pleasure, of a certain ...”

“... he explains, because ‘child protection agencies made access to children impossible.’ But one may feel that the omission is a ‘serious defect’ of the most unarguable sort, such that Dr Li should have contemplated redesigning his research once the agencies created obstacles (if this is indeed what happened). So much hinges on the experience of the ...”

“... them was consistent with Frieda having no ‘reluctance ... to occupy the mothering position’ may not, if judgments are called for, be so easily agreed. My own feeling is that among those who care for these matters (and they are not exclusively censorious male oppressors, as here imagined) there is much less animus against Frieda than Jackson chooses to ...”

“... the ads apart, gives a taste of the kind of journalism which the logic of revenue and distribution may encourage. Such beasts, fat on advertisements, are not pernicious in themselves, but they do threaten their leaner rivals. To buy more printed paper when you have not got through the pile which came on Sunday seems absurd. Expense is not the only factor. Time ...”

“... No nation redeemed me, nor created me; I remember eternity before this age; The Key of David opened my lips, Rome named me a man. He warned the Poles against chauvinism, seized as they were by an otherwise understandable hatred of the partitioning powers. ‘I stand opposed to any system of blood and race ... Europe is not a race but a principle ...”

“... of the radicals, in order to demonstrate that as a result of those activities the King “may” have been killed, and “must” have been put in danger of his life’. These arguments were first unveiled in September 1794 in the indictments against Thomas Hardy, shoemaker and secretary of the LCS, John Horne Tooke, philologist and radical man of ...”

“... saw Igbo officers hunted down and murdered. Then the murders became massacres. ‘Massacre’ may seem melodramatic. But perhaps because the events leading to the Nigeria-Biafra war are so often eclipsed by the war itself, so little remembered, it seems an apt word for the thousands of Igbo civilians in the North who were killed between ...”

“... maps (all rectangles and broad arrows), and in a wealth of jargon which non-enthusiasts (like me) may struggle with. (I was inoculated against all things military by compulsory service in my school’s ludicrous CCF.) It all reads persuasively, however, even to a non-enthusiast; partly because – as is becoming customary (see the books on Britain’s later ...”