“... soon for them to have a History. Also, Histories, however strongly some professional historians may dispute the fact, have to have a point in the present, and it is by no means clear what this point, for the Social Democrats, should be In 1981 and 82, in the first flush of success, it might have seemed that it was to explain the beginning of the breaking of ...”

“... state does not set goals to human activity, but only prescribes limits to the ways in which people may pursue their goals within it – this is what Oakeshott has called an adverbial concept of law. Individuals are not formed by the state: the state is formed by the wills of individuals. What makes Hobbes attractive to Oakeshott is, I believe, this sort of ...”

“... Government was subsidising members of the Jacobin Club who advocated extremist policies. They may, of course, have been genuine radicals, or careerists who had put their money – or rather Pitt’s – on extremism and were grateful to be paid for what they would have done in any case. Whoever they were, they do not seem to have made much ...”

“... a ‘catastrophe’? On the other hand, a situation of relative land plenty and labour shortage may have led to a renewed emphasis on slavery. This may explain why the seventh and eighth-century wars in which so many Anglo-Saxon kings lost their lives bear many of the characteristics of slave hunts. They were also, of ...”

“... says memorably, reminding us that MacDiarmid was both a Stalinist and a plagiarist, ‘consistency may be the hobgoblin of small minds, but accountability is still the hallmark of complete ones.’ And too often MacDiarmid did not hold himself accountable. Accordingly the case for the prosecution – as it has been presented with some heat by earlier ...”

“... blood is sold and when it is donated. Edward Bristow’s subject, likewise, is a service which may be either donated or traded – or obtained under duress. His exploration of it takes him into unfamiliar recesses of public and private depravity, and shines a torch into the laundry room of Judaism. This is to take white slavery as seriously as it was taken ...”

“... and provides a series of enlightening close readings of the text. Concentration on the satires may prove in the long run to be misleading, but it is useful in establishing Rochester’s breadth of allusion and subject. Part of the process of ‘placing’ Rochester is the exposure of his philosophical origins. It is clear that Hobbes influenced him, but ...”

“... you know that your faith, your assurance, are genuine and permanent; Calvin acknowledges that men may have temporary faith. But since the gift of faith comes before repentance it is no good looking inside yourself for signs that will justify assurance, or trying to verify your faith by good works. For Beza and Perkins, the problem is how a man can know that ...”

“... fact, it becomes a central theme in a new form, the novel. That’s too glib, of course. The novel may have benefited from the dissociation of the notion of adultery from that of property, but there are other associations less easily dissolved. What about jealousy, an atavism no doubt, but still painful, and also having to do with the family, but not the ...”

“... of working-class housing, or on the conservative culture of the London working class. The author may feel that it is up to his readers to contextualise and evaluate this material, to provide their own framework within which to assess its novelty and significance: but he is surely the best qualified person to do this, and it is much to be regretted that he ...”

“... Fontana Modern Mastership has by now become so diffuse that the editorial problem may well have shifted from choosing a master who deserves the accolade to finding a biographer to bestow it. Why else should Malinowski still be left off the list but Evans-Pritchard (E-P to all who knew him but not in this book), Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Oxford from 1946-1970, gain the crown? But if E-P be held to deserve apotheosis then Mary Douglas seems, on the face of it, a very appropriate hagiographer, for she is a noted anthropologist in her own right, was once a pupil of E-P, and, like E-P himself in his later years, is an exceptionally devoted member of the Roman Catholic Church ...”

“... Forges), and with the iron and steel-making lineage of the de Wendels. In 1922, the granddaughter, May Bardoux, married Edmond Giscard, the President’s father. René Giscard, Edmond’s brother, married into another republican dynasty, the Carnot family. In 1922-23, the Conseil d’État rather grudgingly granted Edmond the right to add to his name that of ...”

“... conscious of the near-collapse of Merseyside’s economy. And what the good old British public may not have realised as they viewed the nightly twistings, turnings and rantings of leading Militants on the TV news was that they were being given a chilling glimpse of their own future. For what has been happening to Liverpool ...”

“... Even on the worst scenario, it does not make much sense to infuriate people, however stupid they may have been, at a time when they are worried sick. Public scolding of the Russians made even less sense when it was confirmed that scientists employed by government agencies were involved in telephone conversations with their Russian counterparts throughout ...”

“... him as a Roman Catholic pacifist, a Nobel Prizeman speaking measured words to young idealists. We may have forgotten the work of his youth, the two post-war novels based on his experience of service with the German Army in Russia. The 22 stories in The Casualty were written in the immediately post-war period, 1946 to 1952, so that they are ...”