“... as protector. Britain had been approached a number of times, but the Empire had no vacancies. Lord John Russell defined his attitude to Mexico in what could serve as a permanent axiom of British diplomacy: ‘it would be ... unwise to provoke the ill feeling of North America unless some paramount object were in prospect, and tolerably easy of ...”

“... was active in her twenties and thirties in radical political circles, and along with her husband, John Fenwick, an Irish patriot and member of the London Corresponding Society, became friends with William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft around the time of the French Revolution. One of the few – haunting – pieces of biographical information we have about ...”

“... He parcelled out his Beagle specimens to white-collar naturalists: to zoological craftsmen like John Gould (who reciprocated by christening a new rhea darwinii after him). Darwin modelled his Zoology on Humboldt’s Zoologie, acting as taskmaster and paymaster chivvying a Gradgrind work-force. Not that he was incapable of such work himself. Although in ...”

“... Ababa to relinquish its access to the Red Sea. The Eritreans, whose strategic position is the major source of their sorrows, have offered Ethiopia a corridor to the coast after independence. This appears to have cut no ice. Any Ethiopian regime must also be aware that the loss of Eritrea would set a grim precedent for the empire, despite convincing ...”

“... country almost a year early, leading to Labour’s shock defeat in June 1970. Crossman’s other major failure was his attempt to do something about Labour’s constantly repeated pledges to abolish, or at least to reform, the House of Lords. He decided to go for reform, and succeeded in negotiating a scheme which would have ended the hereditary ...”

“... moral support and personal appearances rather than substantial regular subscriptions or occasional major benefactions. She concentrated on organisations concerned with women and children; he was more interested in educational schemes and the problems of poverty. Together, they spent a great deal of time on these good causes: perhaps more, Prochaska ...”

“... Scanlon and Thomas Pogge from the Kantian, Gerald Cohen, Brian Barry, the economists Amartya Sen, John Roemer and Partha Dasgupta, all get a nod in a footnote at most, and we hear nothing informative about how their arguments would be addressed. Major historical contributors such as Kant, Bentham and Adam Smith don’t even ...”

“... German interests were on a collision course. As the biographers of Baldwin, Keith Middlemas and John Barnes, observed, ‘the government had awakened to a danger that had nothing to do with any question of marriage.’ Charles Higham quotes an FBI file in Washington: ‘Certain would-be state secrets were passed on to Edward, and when it was found that ...”

“... Convention was a glamorous performance. But at one point, trying to reproach the Democrats with John Adams’s phrase ‘Facts are stubborn things,’ he slipped and declared instead: ‘Facts are stupid things.’ At the moment he wished to invoke an intransigent, incontrovertible reality which would supposedly confound his enemies and bear out the ...”

“... white, ethereal cloud’. Depending on the setting and production-run, $75 to $200 would get you John F. Kennedy, Napoleon or Marilyn Monroe on your finger. Dancing Naked is partly an autobiography, mostly an explosive voiding of rheum on the idiocies of contemporary science and culture. Mullis presents himself as a professional eccentric, a voice crying in ...”

“... style’, and whole new lines of children’s toys appeared glor-ifying the Boers and ridiculing John Bull. Even the pacifist Tolstoy was caught up in the wild enthusiasm for the war: ‘You know what point I’ve reached? Opening a paper every morning I passionately wish to read that the Boers have beaten the British.’ He knew that he ‘should not ...”

“... is that of Walter Bagehot, the Victorian journalist and banker, still believed in by Mr St John-Stevas. She even refers in more than one place to ‘St Bagehot’, which I fear reflects the uncritical adoration this smart performer received in academic quarters in the Packenhams’ youth. The essence of Bagehot’s view is that the Queen is merely an ...”

“... of Motel Chronicles that a passage as simple as this can share the resonances of some of the major themes in Shepard’s plays: a mythic view of ‘family’ as perhaps the only continuity possible amid the insecurities of modern America; a preoccupation with the father/son relationship (crucial to Paris, Texas and to his latest play Fool for Love); a ...”

“... full-length study of Clough (1973). The letters spanned the vital four years when all Clough’s major poetry was composed – ‘Ambarvalia’, ‘The Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich’, ‘Amours de Voyage’ and ‘Dipsychus’. Tom was a favoured confidant. One of Clough’s letters contained an MS version of ‘Say not the struggle nought availeth’, and ...”

“... Opera or The School for Scandal from this reckoning. The tone is likewise snooty towards John Rich: we must hope that the fuller knowledge of Covent Garden practice which is beginning to emerge will permit less condescending treatment. It should be said that Nicoll is good, though brief, on Garrick as director, at a time when London companies ...”