“... soft centre, sometimes farcical, usually earnest, and always controversial, of a whole cluster of major intellectual concerns. Here the contrary waves of credulity and scepticism were constantly colliding. On the one hand, spiritualism was not free of the superstition that had always been a part of society’s perennial attempt to pierce beyond physical ...”

“... swimming, movies, discos, the circus, the Boston Red Sox, you name it. The welfare state of the Major Reunions Office even offered ‘proctored examinations’ for teenagers with school exams to take. As promising future material for Harvard admission, they were worth taking care of. People Express took me to Newark, and on Sunday 1 June, the first day of ...”

“... Allowed to read this work, Juliette, who had come on a bit, suggested it should be retitled ‘John Thomas and Lady Jane’, an idea which Lawrence liked but his publishers resisted. Trouble began when Julian on a voyage to Africa met a pretty American girl in the ever-fatal Red Sea. It was to be no passing fancy and he demanded that his wife should rise ...”

“... to work have lasted had there been no hope of homes for young couples? If bad housing was a major cause of ill health, would not the production statistics benefit from a fitter labour force? In writing of social provision, Barnett unconsciously applies a double standard. Increases in public expenditure are singled out for attack. The housing programme ...”

“... Valeri was blackballed and had to be replaced by an angry Vatican with Mgr Roncalli (later John XXIII). In return Pius XII insisted that the French Catholic hierarchy remain unchallenged. This was clearly impossible: opinion polls showed that a better than eight-to-one majority wanted the collaborationist bishops punished. (Some of them had already had ...”

“... critical intelligence on a wide range of academic subjects. Boswell was conscious that he had a major contribution to make to literature, and successfully carried through on a large scale a wholly new concept of biography. Political and religious liberty, social stimulation and material comfort might have prevented men from creating these structures, but ...”

“... and then, without bothering to consult the operational War Diaries, proceeds to spin out the John Connell-Correlli Barnett myth that Montgomery’s only contribution to the Desert arena was an incomprehensible uplift in morale. Monty’s plan for the defence of Alam Halfa, he declares, was inherited from Auchinleck: he neglects to mention that ...”

“... other than my king’s ideal knight’. Between them, the two Tennysons illustrated two major aspects of the chivalric obsession. Fancy expanded into pretentiousness which then lapsed into absurdity, and noble sentiments carried within them the seeds of cant. These are the themes (though they are not spelled out in such a fashion) of Mark ...”

“... downwards.’ The profound patriotism of Shelley and Byron, the inability to think logically of John Stuart Mill and Cardinal Newman and Lewis Carroll? No, it won’t do, and Orwell, for once, was talking through his hat – perhaps relaxing in what he considered an ‘English’ manner. It really seems, then, not quite proper that distinguished experts ...”

“... another set of essays, more demanding than On Going to Bed. Then we may decide whether they are a major triad, a trio or merely triplets. What This Man and Music is concerned with is the relation between music and literature, with particular reference to the musical pattern of the author’s writing and the verbal pattern of his compositions. But first, as ...”

“... when it deals with the world at large. The sentence in the chapter on the military budget, by John Blackaby, is surely a candidate for the saying of the year: ‘The Soviet Union is a long way away.’ To recommend, on the one hand, a systematic violation of the Treaty of Rome by an import surcharge, and, on the other, the permanent vetoing of ...”

“... in Cnut’s kingship of England. The reason, rather, is that the last twenty years have seen a major revision in the understanding of Viking activity and its impact on Europe, largely, though not entirely, through the work of archaeologists. David Wilson, Director of the British Museum, is among the most distinguished of these, and the exhibition which he ...”

“... have an integrity and persistence of their own. Academic historians such as Maurice Cowling and John Vincent have for years been plotting the political seduction of the aspiring middle classes into primrose leagues. It was all in Bagehot anyway. Similarly it is striking, but in some ways rather pathetic, to discover a Marxist such as Philip Corrigan ...”

“... than a gentleman (one of his favourite distinctions), a competent professional of modern spirit. John Kennedy was already dead, but the New Frontier spirit seemed to be alive in the Britain of 1964, and Harold Wilson to exemplify it. We believed him, or some of us did, when he said that he would get Britain going again, bring in new people, harness new ...”

“... But he does his best to enliven things with biographical vignettes. The revelation that John Ashbery was a radio Quiz Kid at the age of 14 does nothing to undermine my prejudices against his work, but the ever-catholic Perkins gives a sympathetic introduction. How far, though, is the book a history? By continual cross-cutting, Perkins gives an idea ...”